My Dads
by Marika
Summary: This is the story of Heero and Duo's daughter, and her quest for the truth about the mysterious Gundam pilots.
1. Part 1

ONE YEAR AFTER THE MARIEMEA INCIDENT:  
  
"Hey, how you guys been?" Duo asked with a grin as the others seated themselves at the table in the conference room at Preventers headquarters.  
  
"We've been well," Quatre responded with a slight smile. It was clear that he was nervous, though, from the way that he gripped Trowa's hand. Trowa's expression, as usual, was a blank mask, although now he patted Quatre's hand reassuringly as he nodded to Duo. "You?"  
  
"Oh, great! We bought out that scavenge operation I told you about, and Heero's helping me run it!" he gave his lover a broad grin before turning back to Quatre. "He's thinking about getting a computer job somewhere, maybe, to pull in a little bit of extra legitimate money."  
  
Quatre's smile broadened slightly as he tried not to laugh. "That's great."  
  
Heero grunted before looking around the room. "Why did Une want to talk to us?" he asked flatly.  
  
"I don't know," Quatre replied with a worried frown. His head snapped up as the door opened and Chang Wufei walked in the room, followed by Lady Une. Wufei greeted his comrades with a curt nod, followed by a slight smile, but the slight creased lines of his brow meant that he didn't know what was going on, either.  
  
"Lady Une," Quatre said, politely rising from his chair to greet her.   
  
She smiled, tight-lipped, and nodded at him. "It's good to see you again, I'm sorry it had to be under these conditions."  
  
"What conditions?" Duo asked suspiciously as Quatre seated himself again, with Wufei also sitting on their side of the table. Une remained standing.   
  
"We finally got around to finding and checking out the remaining labs of the scientists who created the Gundams," she said, sounding uncomfortable.  
  
"So? Were the old bastards there, or did they run into hiding?" Duo asked lightly. "Or are they dead? I never really bothered to check."  
  
"They're alive... and in custody."  
  
"For what?" Duo asked, simulating only mild interest.  
  
"For breaking the ban on genetic experimentation on humans," she said, putting down several folders and sliding them in front of the five former pilots. Everyone in the room was well aware that all of the Gundam pilots had undergone some genetic manipulation in order to allow them to pilot the Gundams, but they also knew this wasn't what she was talking about. She waited silently as they quickly skimmed through the files.   
  
"Those bastards..." Duo said, both of his hands clenched into fists. "How could they... how did they dare..." he fell silent as Heero rested a hand on his shoulder, but his stony expression and the fire in his eyes said more clearly than words that he agreed. Quatre was unusually pale and looked slightly nauseous. Trowa's expression hadn't changed, although his body had become one clenched muscle, and he refused to look anyone in the eye. Wufei simply looked furious.  
  
"I don't know," Une said simply. "I actually visited one of the labs myself. What was there was... horrible. Most of the... experiments didn't make it past a month or two, and they were bad enough, but the ones that made it to seven or eight months..." she shook her head. "I'm sorry. But that's not why I called you here. Another matter has come up."  
  
"What?" Heero asked in a low voice, sounding dangerous. "The labs - and everything in them, must be destroyed." There was a definite hint of 'if you don't, I will' in his voice.  
  
Une correctly interpreted the threat. "The labs and all of the research will be destroyed, you have my word on it. But there are... some things that cannot be destroyed, and we thought you might know what to do with them."  
  
"What is it?" Wufei asked sharply, giving his superior a suspicious look.  
  
Une swallowed. "The viable experiments," she said simply.  
  
  
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"Daddy, I'm home!" Julia shouted cheerfully as she walked through the front door of her home. She tossed her school bag on the floor, then carefully set down the bag containing her aikido gi on the dining room table. She needed to wash her gi and this way she'd remember to do it later. "Daddy!" she shouted again when her first call produced no response. She thought she heard a faint response from the work room, and, grabbing a couple of apples on her way, went to investigate.  
  
She pushed open the door and looked around at the room, which was filled with various pieces of electronic and mechanical equipment, covering every open surface and most of the floor. A casual inspection did not reveal her father anywhere, but Julia knew better. She began a careful search of the room, and was finally rewarded when she saw a pair of boots sticking out from under a large engine that looked like it belonged to an old Taurus mobile suit. Where he'd found an antique like that was beyond her.   
  
"Duo-daddy!" she shouted again, kicking the sole of one of his boots.  
  
There was a loud clang and then some muffled cursing, and her dad slid himself out from under the engine, rubbing his head and wincing. "Feel like warning me before you do that?" he complained loudly, and Julia giggled.  
  
"I did try when I came in, but you didn't hear me," she said. "And you have something on your face."  
  
"I do?" he reached up to touch the grease-stain on his cheek, and succeeded in smearing it all over his face in the process. Julia giggled again. She knew it was completely childish and that he did stuff like that just to get a rise out of her, but she couldn't help herself. He was so cute, and he worked so hard at acting that way. It was absolutely not fair that her thirty-something fathers were both cuter than she would ever be, but it was a fact of life, and something she'd gotten used to.  
  
"Yup, just a little," she told him. "Where'd you get this thing?" she asked, looking at the engine.  
  
"Some tourists found it when they were poking around the wreckage of that colony in the L4 cluster," Duo told her, grimacing. "They're just lucky that it was the engine that survived the battle and not one of the guns! Idiots could have been blown to bits!"   
  
"L4? So how did you end up with it?" Julia asked, walking around it in a large circle. It was in amazingly good condition, considering that it had obviously been through a battle and then had sat in space for over fifteen years. Of course, mobile suits were designed to operate in space, so the cold vacuum probably hadn't affected the metal all that much, but still, it was an impressive find.   
  
"Well, the guys that found it knew that I'd know how to deconstruct the damn thing without getting it to blow up. Would you believe that the power core is still active?"  
  
Julia's eyebrows raised slightly. "Really?" That made it an even better find. After the Mariemaia Incident, most of the mobile suits left from the war were destroyed, and the few that remained were in the hands of the Preventers. It wasn't every day that she got to see hardware like this.  
  
"Yup! Hey, Julie," Daddy said, his purplish eyes taking on a decidedly wicked gleam, "I have to dismantle it, but that doesn't mean that we can't play with it a little first, check out the output readings, that sort of thing. You wanna help?"  
  
Julia grinned at him. "Really?"  
  
"Do I ever lie?"  
  
"Nope. Cool! Just give me a few minutes to get changed." Julia knew from past experience that she always got dirty when she helped her Duo-daddy in the workshop, and she was wearing some nice school clothes.  
  
"Oh, it doesn't matter. What's the use of having nice clothes if you can't get them messy?" Duo asked.   
  
Julia ran a skeptical eye up and down her father's current attire. As usual, he was dressed almost entirely in black, which probably didn't show stains as well, but was damn hot in the summer. She'd never quite managed to get him to explain why he only wore black. "Are you going to clean my stuff after it gets dirty?" she asked archly, raising an eyebrow.  
  
"No, that's OK, why don't you go get changed now," he said, pretending to be terrified at the thought of having to clean anything. Julia giggled again and walked back into the main part of the house, snagging her bags on the way up to her room.   
  
Once there, she once again dumped her school books on the carpet and carefully set her aikido bag on the bed. It was very important to have one's priorities straight, after all. She immediately kicked off her shoes and went to her dresser, digging through the bottom drawer for her scrubs. Ah... there they were, a pair of sweatpants that had been irredeemably ruined when she spilled half of a vat of bleach on herself when she was trying to clean the floor of the workroom, and a tee-shirt that was liberally sprinkled with spots of paint from when they last painted the house. She frowned slightly at the memory. Somehow her Duo-daddy had ended up 'accidentally' dumping an entire bucket of paint on his head, although she couldn't quite imagine how he expected them to believe that you could 'accidentally' do that. And as for her other father...  
  
Only her otousan could manage to paint an entire wall without getting one drop of paint on him, well, until Duo-daddy threw his arms around Tousan to give him a big kiss, smearing his entire face and a good deal of his chest with paint. Tousan had glared at Daddy (and he had a very impressive glare), told him that he was going to kill him, and then attacked him, using his paintbrush as a weapon, and occasionally crumpling some paper into a ball and dunking it in the paint if he felt the need for a projectile. They'd come very close to having a spotted house for some time. Julia still laughed whenever she thought about it.  
  
She quickly stripped off her clothes, folding them neatly and laying them on the chair - she didn't want to have to deal with getting wrinkles out of them later - but she paused before she started to pull on the sweatpants, glancing at herself in the mirror. She was just barely sixteen years old, but she had a decent start on a womanly body, she guessed. She was well aware of the fact that most people thought she was beautiful, and also aware that few teenage girls thought that they looked good. So she was mostly being influenced by society at large and her own self-doubts, or something. So what? She might as well be normal in at least one thing.  
  
There was very little that could be considered truly 'normal' in her life. Well, on the surface everything seemed pretty normal. Teenage girl, living at home with her two working parents, spending most of her time with school or after-school activities. Perfectly normal. Right.  
  
That was where the normalcy ended. To start with, both of her parents were male. Now, while homosexuality wasn't considered wrong, per say, it wasn't exactly something that most people were comfortable with, and there were very few homosexual couples out there with children, although that number had gone up dramatically in the last fifteen years because of all of the orphans from the war. Julia was one of those - her fathers hadn't tried to conceal that fact from her, and it didn't really bother her that much. It was obvious that she couldn't be their child, and they treated her just like they would if she was their flesh and blood. Better than some of her friends parents, actually, although sometimes she wished that she really was related to them.   
  
She did look a little bit like them, though that was probably more wishful thinking than any real resemblance. Her eyes were slanted slightly, a strange blue-gray color and her hair was a few shades darker than Tousan's, just a few shades short of black, but her face was similar in shape to Daddy's, and she had the same wiry build as her Japanese father. Coincidence, of course, but it was nice to think about.  
  
Her fathers were very considerate about her feelings about being an orphan, probably because she suspected that they were also orphans. Neither of them had ever come out and just said it, but it was fairly obvious. Neither had ever mentioned any family, much less shown her pictures or introduced her to a distant relative. In fact, the only family they did claim were three other men, about their own age, with nothing at all in common, who were generally called her 'uncles'. Quatre and Trowa were also married, but living in the L4 cluster, where Quatre was amazingly rich and owned more companies than Julia wanted to think about. They had one daughter Julia's age named Katie, who she saw several times a year. Katie was a little strange, but very nice, and isolated because of her parent's wealth. Her other 'uncle' was a Preventer named Chang Wufei, whose wife also happened to be Julia's doctor. The two of them had five children, three girls ranging in age from a few younger than her to about five, and then twin boys who were only a few years old. She played with them whenever they visited, and thought of them as her cousins. His was the face that smiling forgot, but he was very nice and had shown Julia all around Preventer headquarters, in addition to telling her embarrassing stories about her parents from when she was little.  
  
Now that she thought of it, she had no idea how the five had met, although she had asked several times. Each time one of her fathers had managed to distract her and lead the conversation in another direction, until she forgot her original question.   
  
Realizing that she'd been standing in her room mostly naked for several minutes, she shook her head and started pulling on the sweats. Yes, not normal, that was her. Besides having two fathers, and being an orphan to boot, she had her own little abnormalities. Like the fact that she was a genius. Yup, a certifiable genius. It wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Mostly it meant that she was always bored in class, skipped a couple of grades, and then nearly sent away to be part of a study for 'gifted' children. She shuddered at how close she'd come to getting separated from her family, if Tousan hadn't realized what was going on and interrupted the process... After that both of her fathers had taken an active interest in her education, active interest in this case meaning that they basically took it over. While she had continued to attend regular boring classes during the day, every evening she sat down with one of them to learn something interesting, like molecular physics, or the history of propaganda used by various governments in the last fifty years, or the engineering behind the mobile suits, or in the reasoning that led to the creation of the mobile suits in the first place. All of it was a lot more interesting than anything she learned in school. Sometime in the last few years she realized how intelligent both of her parents were, that they were able to teach her all of that stuff, and that they managed not to let anyone else know about it. As far as she could tell, all of their neighbors thought that they were a perfectly normal (homosexual) couple. She'd followed their lead, and only got in trouble once when she displayed her knowledge by pointing out the obvious propaganda in some of the old history books they were reading. So now she was just barely sixteen, halfway through her senior year of high school with a bunch of training in a variety of subjects that no one knew about, and then...  
  
And then, of course, there were her hobbies. Or rather, her one main hobby, which would be martial arts. Julia was well aware that some of her classmates thought that she was 'unfeminine' (at best) to spend so much time getting thrown around on the mat, but she didn't care.  
  
When she was five or six, one of her best friends started taking a karate class, and talked about it so much that Julia had pestered her fathers until they agreed and signed her up for class. They'd been on hand for the first class, and had made it all of twenty minutes into the class before Duo-daddy stormed out onto the mat, fists and teeth clenched, to give the sensei the biggest tongue-lashing that Julia had ever seen.  
  
Somehow he managed not to curse once in front of her, the other little kids, or the parents as he displayed his irritation with the teacher's 'discipline' and 'failure to teach proper basics' and a number of other sins that Julia hadn't understood at the time but now did and was horrified to think of.   
  
One of the top students had been outraged at her father's lack-of-respect, and made as if to drag him off the mat. That was when Julia discovered that her cheerful, playful daddy was a fighter of some sort, quickly breaking the other guy's hold and giving him one warning before knocking him to the mat and holding him there for a full minute. Then he let him up, picked her up, and announced that they were leaving.   
  
Despite that less-than-auspicious beginning, things had worked out surprisingly well. Both of her fathers had told her that if she wanted to learn to defend herself, they would help, but they had to find her another dojo. She hadn't had the heart to tell them that she'd been more interested in spending time with her friends than in actually learning to defend herself, and when she found out the result was that she got to spend more time with her dads, she was happy enough with that. For the three month gap between that first lesson and the time when they found a dojo that they felt was good enough for their daughter, they gave her some basic lessons in self-defense. After that they left her training up to her sensei, aside from watching it very carefully, until several years ago, when she asked them if they'd teach her some more, to go with what she was learning.  
  
They hadn't been very happy (in fact, she got the impression that they wished she'd forgotten that they'd ever taught her), but after a little bit of cajoling, they agreed.   
  
Now that she knew a little bit more about the different disciplines, she found what her parents taught her somewhat confusing. She'd thought, for a while, that maybe they met at a dojo or something, but the moment that they started teaching her again she knew better. Duo-daddy taught her with a style that could only be described as extremely dirty. Extremely dirty and extremely effective. Meanwhile, her otousan had a completely different style, one she couldn't identify from any discipline she'd ever heard of. It was also ruthlessly brutal. When she'd asked them about it, Daddy said that it was just something he'd picked up, so that he could take care of himself during the war.   
  
She shivered. It must have been pretty awful back then if a couple of teenagers thought that they had to learn to protect themselves. Actually, people her age were already headed off for military academies, if they wanted. She wondered if either of her fathers had ever attended one.  
  
Julia finished jamming her feet into a pair of otherwise ruined sneakers and headed back down the stairs and back to the workroom, catching her hair up in a ponytail as she walked. When she arrived, Daddy was once again underneath the engine with his feet sticking out again. Julia giggled, resisted the urge to kick his feet again, and lay down on the floor before wiggling her way underneath the large engine.   
  
"How's it going?"  
  
"Not too bad. See, some micrometeorites must have hit it, it's the only explanation for this type of fracture, see the pattern?"  
  
"Yeah, I think so."  
  
"That's not stress-related or caused from the impact that destroyed this," he continued. "So that has to be it, but I don't think that the damage is bad enough to stop us from turning it on."  
  
'You think?"  
  
"I'm almost certain," he said cheerfully. "Now get back."  
  
"What?"  
  
"Get back, I don't want you under here when I turn it on."  
  
"Why?" she asked suspiciously.   
  
"Because I just want to be careful."  
  
"You think it's going to blow up, don't you?" she accused.  
  
"No, I just want to be careful."   
  
"If you get hurt, Tousan's going to kill you."  
  
"Look, I'm going to be fine, it's not going to blow up."  
  
"Then why do I have to go away?"  
  
"I just want to be careful, Hee-chan will really kill me if you get hurt."  
  
"So it's safe enough for you but not safe enough for me."  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"I'm not moving." Julia latched onto one of the pipes protruding out of the engine with her right hand and glared at her father. There was no way that she was going to let him risk himself over something stupid like this. Julia firmly believed that it was her job to keep both of her fathers out of trouble if at all possible.   
  
"Julie..."  
  
"If it's too dangerous for me to be here, then it's too dangerous for you to be here. Between the two of us we can rig something to turn it on from a distance in what, twenty minutes?"  
  
"This would be a lot easier if you'd just get out of the way."  
  
"No. Oh, and did you do anything about dinner?"  
  
"Dinner?"  
  
"It's your night, remember?" Since no one in their little household really enjoyed cooking, they'd come to an agreement some time ago that they'd share that chore, and as Julia had just pointed out, it was Duo-daddy's night.  
  
She saw him bite his lip, probably to try to avoid cursing in front of her. It was kind of amusing, it wasn't like she didn't know those words, and he knew that she knew them as well, he just seemed to have something about not saying them in front of her. After a few seconds, he asked, "How does pizza sound?"  
  
"Tousan's going to hate it."  
  
"He'll eat it," Daddy said confidently.   
  
"It's your funeral," Julia said with a shrug. "So, are we agreed? You go order the pizza while I start working on some way to turn it on that doesn't involve us getting blown up, and then we both turn it on together, from a distance?"  
  
"Hey! I never..."  
  
"Sure you did, Daddy," she said, giving him a kiss on the cheek and pulling him out from under the engine with her.  
  
  
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As it turned out, they ran out of time to start up the engine that night, because first the pizza, then Tousan arrived at their house. After the pizza arrived, Julia took some time to clean up, so that she was actually able to throw her arms around her otousan's chest and give him a big hug without ruining the suit he had to wear for work. She'd never actually heard him complain about wearing it, but she thought that he didn't like it very much, since it never stayed on for more than five minutes after he arrived home.  
  
Her outousan worked for some sort of computer company, testing their systems to make sure that they weren't vulnerable to hackers. He'd even shown her a little bit of what he did, and as far as she could tell, he was very good at his job.  
  
"Tousan!" she shouted as he entered, and gave him a big hug.  
  
"Hey, I'm supposed to do that," Daddy complained as he emerged from the kitchen, still with the grease stain on his face.   
  
"Hn?" Julia was very proud of her father's ability to communicate an entire sentence without using a single word.  
  
"Well, I'm the housewife, aren't I?" Daddy asked, fluttering his eyelashes and causing Julia to giggle and Tousan to roll his eyes.  
  
"You have a job, baka. And a real housewife can cook." He glanced over at Julia, flashed her a quick smile, then mock-glared at Daddy. "You forgot again, didn't you?"  
  
"Well, you know, pizza is a very good source of nutrition... Comeon, Hee-chan, you know you didn't marry me for my cooking skills!"  
  
"Hn."  
  
Julia quickly spun around to avoid seeing her parents kissing. There were some images that she just didn't need to have in her mind, and that was one of them. She didn't really have a problem with it, she just didn't want to see it. "I'll go get the table set," she muttered. Of course, when they were having pizza, setting the table meant putting out three plates and three cups, but it was always good to put together a record of being helpful, for when she really didn't want to help for one reason or another.  
  
Five minutes later her fathers came into the kitchen. Daddy had cleaned the grease off his face, and Tousan was in his customary green tank-top and jeans. Chalk another one up to the not-normalcy of her family. A friend she'd once had over for dinner had gone on forever about seeing her father in a green tank-top, but that was what he'd worn for as long as she could remember, so she was used to it. It looked comfortable enough.   
  
"How was work?" she asked them both as they each took a slice of pizza and sat down.  
  
"Well, you saw the engine," Daddy told her. "But there wasn't much else. The problem is that when there isn't a war, there's not so much to salvage. Howard's thinking about branching off into mining asteroids, could be interesting."  
  
"Three viruses and a worm got into the new accounting program," Tousan announced with a slight grimace.  
  
"Bet they're not there anymore," Daddy teased.  
  
"Hn."  
  
"How was class, sweety?" Daddy asked.  
  
"Fine. Sensei couldn't make it, so John took over the class, and he used me to demonstrate on most of the time," she told them proudly. "We got a couple of new guys in the class, too. Nice, both of them. One used to study karate, the other's never done anything before. I had to show him how to roll."  
  
"Always gotta know how to fall before you can fight," Daddy said cheerfully. "All right, as your father I'm morally obligated to ask this. How was school?"   
  
"Oh, it was fine, I picked my topic for my senior project." At Julia's school, all graduating students were required to do a major research project on a topic of their choice. Because you could pick anything you wanted and got out of one of your regular classes to do it, it was generally looked on as enjoyable rather than a chore.   
  
"Oh, what was it?" Daddy grinned at her. "Are you going to write about your two wonderful parents?"  
  
"No, unfortunately, I don't think they'd accept that as a topic. I'm going to research the Gundam pilots."   
  
She was looking right at him, so she knew that it wasn't her imagination, her Duo-daddy did pale slightly when she said this. Tousan's expression didn't change, but something did, she could sense the tension in the air. "What's wrong?"  
  
"That's a weird topic, Julie. A lot of people have some very strong feelings about them, even though the war was over fifteen years ago. Why'd you pick it?"  
  
"That's why I picked it. I mean, they had a major impact on so many people's lives, and no one even knows who they are. I just thought it would be really interesting to find out everything I could about them, maybe try to guess why they did all the horrible stuff they did." She looked worriedly from face to face. "Is that OK?"  
  
"Sure it is!" Daddy said, smiling again, although it looked a little forced. "Let us know if you need any help."  
  
Since she'd expected that offer, she just smiled. "I will, but I'm really supposed to do this on my own, except for my advisor."  
  
"Who is it?" Tousan asked.  
  
"Mrs. Kinley, she's that English teacher I had two years ago. I'm going to go to school early tomorrow to talk about what sort of approach I should use."  
  
  
  
  
  
Well, here's the next beginning of a story. Please let me know whether you think I should continue with it or not. I am also going to try to get 'The Others' finished soon.  
Marika 8/9/01 


	2. Part 2

Julia got up early the next morning and rushed to school so she could meet with Mrs. Kinley before class started. She walked up to the office and knocked on the door. "Who is it?" said a quiet voice inside.  
  
"It's me, Julia," she called back.  
  
"Come on in."   
  
Julia slowly pushed open the door and peered inside. She'd never had a reason to go into this room before, but it was nice enough, if a little cramped. The desk and two chairs barely fit, and most of the desk was covered with neat stacks of paper. Mrs. Kinley was a short, red-haired woman with a thin face and a warm smile. She smiled at Julia as she came in and nodded towards the free chair as she swept several papers into a pile and then set those on top of another pile, giving her a little free space on the desk. "Just take a seat. How are you, Julia?"  
  
"I'm fine," she replied automatically, sitting down. "How are you?"  
  
"Busy, but I'm very excited about your proposed project. Have you given any thought as to how you want to approach it?"  
  
"Yeah, actually, I had some ideas. I know that I'm going to research everything that's known about them, see if I can dig up something interesting."  
  
"That's good, although you know there's very little information about them available," Mrs. Kinley said, nodding her head.   
  
"Yeah, I know, but there wouldn't be much to the project if I didn't have something about them. But what I was really going to concentrate on is the situation around the pilots, the political situation that led to the situation that produced the Gundams. I mean, everyone knows that the wars had been going on for years before the Gundams showed up, I was going to look at why they escalated right when the Gundams showed up."  
  
"Well, the obvious answer would be that the Gundams were responsible for the escalation," her teacher responded.  
  
"Yeah, but that's what I want to look at. You don't usually see entire wars changing because of the actions of a few terrorists, no matter what they do. I want to see if they really were responsible for the escalation, or if they were just a part of it, or if they just had really bad timing," she grinned at the little joke. Mrs. Kinley did not. In fact, she seemed to be getting more and more tense as the conversation went on. Julia killed the smile and continued, "I was also thinking about trying to figure out what the hell the colonies were thinking, when they sent the Gundams."  
  
"The colonies?"  
  
"Well, yeah," Julia said, surprised at the question. "It takes a lot of money to make a Gundam, I think - I'm going to have to look into that as well - but just the supplies to build it cost a lot. I think that someone, well, a lot of people in the colonies must have known about it, even if it's just a little part of the process. So I was going to look at that, too, try to figure out why those people thought that they were making the right choice."  
  
"The right choice?!" Mrs. Kinley exclaimed, her voice rising slightly in shock.  
  
"Yeah, well, you don't usually do things because you think that you're doing something evil. I bet even the Gundam pilots thought that they were doing the right thing, somehow."  
  
"Extremists don't always need a reason."  
  
"Yeah, I guess that could be it," Julia said with a shrug. "But they did end up saving the planet, so they can't have been all bad."  
  
"They were terrorists." That was delivered in a flat, unemotional voice, and Julia stared at her for a second before deciding that it would be absolutely completely rude to ask her what her problem was. Sure they were terrorists, that was a given, but even they had to have reasons for their actions, no matter how twisted they might seem to normal people. No one would ever give Gundams to people who were absolutely insane. On the other hand, she knew that one of them had completely destroyed several colonies, the same colonies they were supposed to protect. That wasn't sane by anyone's definition.  
  
"I don't know, I guess I was just going to see what I could find out, and then see where it led me. I figure that if I don't have something in a few months, then we can try to figure out something else. Does that sound OK?"  
  
"That sounds like it will be an excellent project. The one suggestion I have is that you might want to speak to some people with some firsthand experience, either ones who survived some of the later battles, or those who had friends and family who were killed by the Gundams," she said, her voice slightly bitter. "There are quite a few of them still around, the war wasn't that long ago."  
  
Julia nodded, although she preferred to work with hard data, Mrs. Kinley had a good point - she could learn a lot about the times just from talking to people about them, especially if she could find a couple of soldiers who'd actually seen the Gundams.  
  
"I'll do that." Julia scooped up her backpack just as the first bell rang. "Thanks, Mrs. Kinley. I'll talk to you later this week?"   
  
"Yes, I'm here every morning, just stop by, although some advance notice would be nice."  
  
"No problem. See you later."  
  
  
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By the time that the end of the day rolled around, Julia (having devoted not only her free period but most of her lunch to research) had most of the basic well-known facts about the Gundams. She knew that once people hit middle school the number of reports written about the Gundams decreased significantly, and once you hit high-school they disappeared entirely. This drop-off wasn't because of a lack of interest, it was because you had to write longer papers in high-school, and there simply wasn't enough information available to substantiate a report of any length. Since she had some free time at the end of the day, she called up the information on her laptop and reviewed it.  
  
On April 7, 195, exactly twenty years to the day after the pacifist Heero Yuy was assassinated, the first of the Gundams was sighted and shot down somewhere over East Asia. It was later discovered that the other four had also landed secretly at the same time. No record existed of what happened, but a week later that first Gundam, later code named 01, was held responsible for the destruction of a base several hundred miles from that point, so obviously both the Gundam and pilot survived being shot down. Unless, of course, that there had originally been six Gundams, two of them identical, so that when the first was destroyed, the second took it's place... no, that was an interesting idea, but there was no way that she'd ever find out if that was the truth or not, it was a better idea to stick with the official story and assume that both the Gundam and pilot had survived. It was more likely, anyway, than there being two identical Gundams, since none of the others looked alike.   
  
At about the same time, the other four Gundams appeared, methodically destroying base after base, and almost never leaving any survivors. They had never been known to attack civilian facilities, concentrating entirely on Oz/Alliance bases. Here Julia paused and looked over her notes. The resources she'd consulted varied almost randomly, sometimes referring to the bases as 'Oz' bases, sometimes as 'Alliance' bases. She'd been under the impression that they were the same organization, but something about the way they talked about the groups made her question her assumption. She made a quick note that she had to go look that up later. Anyway, things continued like that for some time - the only major event in that period being when Gundam 01 killed all of the 'doves' of the Alliance, all of the generals who were looking for peace. Here Julia made another note, she couldn't remember exactly what it was or where she'd heard it before, but something about that didn't seem to fit. She'd hunt that down later.   
  
Then, for no apparent reason, the Gundams ceased their attacks. There was no official reason given for it, and Julia didn't trust that. Now, she knew that the 'officials' weren't responsible for the actions of the Gundam pilots, but she was almost positive that they knew something about what had happened. Why? It was simple - there were no official theories put out as to why the Gundam attacks had ceased. She would have thought that there would be at least a few of them out there, but there weren't any. The only theories were coming from civilians and other organizations not connected with the military. What she took from that was that the military knew something, but was trying to conceal that knowledge, but they went too far in the other direction by pretending to know absolutely nothing. After all the hacking she'd done, she didn't believe that the military was ever really completely ignorant. She wasn't sure whether or not she'd be able to use this, even if she managed to find some evidence to prove her theory correct, chances were she'd get it from a place she couldn't site when she finished her project.  
  
After that things were quiet for a month or so. Then the colonies suddenly cut the Gundam pilots loose, claiming that they no longer had any support in the colonies and declaring them criminals. As soon as that broadcast hit the air (and Julia was very proud of herself for picking up on this detail), the Gundam pilots attacked a couple of bases, stole transports, and headed for space. Julia couldn't even begin to imagine what had prompted those actions, but she'd been caught for a second by imagining the shock the pilots must have felt, how betrayed they must have felt, and rightly so. She immediately tried to throw off that idea, she was trying to stick to facts here, not her own imaginings.   
  
This was when things started to get really interesting, and very vague, because it was all within the military. The one well-known fact was that Gundam 02 had been captured and then destroyed by one of Oz's up-and-coming stars. The pilot had been captured, too, but there was very little mention of him. Apparently at some point there'd been some posters of him up in the colony, but they were long since gone, and since she was on Earth, the chances of her finding someone who had actually seen one were slim. Which was really too bad, because it would have been really cool to find out what one of the Gundam pilots actually looked like. At any rate, he must have escaped at some point, because several weeks later, a second Gundam 02 (she decided, since there seemed to be at least two versions of every Gundam, she'd name them a, b, c, chronologically for as many different versions as she found), along with Gundam 05b (no mention of what happened to 05a), blew up most of a base on the moon and then disappeared into space. This raised a lot of interesting questions, like where had the second set of Gundams come from, how did they get to the moon, and what had the Gundam pilots been doing there? All of these were very important, and none of the answers were in any official explanation.  
  
She was under the impression that several of the pilots had been captured during this time, but that information was lost with the major event of that time frame, the destruction of several colonies by Gundam 01b. This was completely inexplicable, given the previous actions by the Gundams. They'd never even attacked a civilian installation before, the closest they'd come had been attacking military academies, what would make one of them destroy a colony that contained thousands of innocent civilians, the same people who'd originally sent the Gundams to Earth. Given, they'd been betrayed by the colonies, but that didn't seem like enough of an explanation. The only real clue she had there was the knowledge that just before the colonies were destroyed, they'd announced that they would be arming themselves.   
  
That Gundam was finally taken out by two Oz mobile suits. There was no record of the two pilots who flew those suits. None whatsoever. And that was suspicious enough on it's own, she would have thought that the pilots would be named heroes, at least. But no mention of them was ever made.  
  
It was at that time that the moon base was destroyed, and it was a very long time before either Gundams 04 or 03 (either version) were seen. Actually, 03 appeared to have disappeared completely for several months. 04b (no note of what happened to 04a) and 01a were both next seen at the battle in the Sank kingdom where Sank surrendered to the Oz forces (Julia noticed that the books used Oz almost all the time now). The ruler of the Sank kingdom, Relena Peacecraft, was taken into custody by Oz and some other group that she couldn't find the name of (that led to another note, this wasn't quite as straightforward as she'd thought it would be), and subsequently named Queen of the World. Julia wasn't entirely clear on how that had happened, either, although her acceptance had seemed to be universal. The Gundams disappeared, aside from a few attacks in space.  
  
That was when White Fang showed up. Julia wasn't quite sure what they were supposed to be, but they appeared to be a terrorist organization that had a ton of mobile suits (called mobile dolls) that supposedly represented the colonies and demanded their independence from Oz, their demand culminating with an attack from a huge spaceship that somehow ended up in their hands. The attack was against Earth itself, and they declared themselves willing to destroy the entire Earth, if that was what it took.   
  
There was one other fact that she'd made note of, not because of any significance to her project, but because of personal interest. In most of the books she'd looked at, there was at least a passing reference about the death of the head of Winner, Inc., and then another short note saying that the son had suddenly appeared to take over the family business. The Winner son that they were talking about was her uncle Quatre, and some quick math told her that he'd have been her age when he took over the company. She couldn't imagine how horrible it had been for him to lose his father, and to be thrust into responsibility like that. She reminded herself to give her fathers an extra hug when she got home.   
  
After that, nothing was very clear. There was a huge battle in outer space involving White Fang, the Gundams, and the forces of the World Nation. Somehow, in all the destruction, one particular battle between Gundam 01b and some other special suit that she didn't recognize ended up getting broadcast to the entire world, with a woman's voice telling people to look at the futility of war. (She'd actually gotten a copy of the transmission and had already watched it several times. The sheer power contained in those machines was both amazing and horrible.) Then that transmission got cut off, and the huge battleship was seen plummeting towards Earth, where it would almost certainly destroy everything. Then it exploded. There was no explanation given, it just exploded. Then Gundam 01b made an amazing dive and managed to get in front of one of the largest pieces that was heading for Earth, and blew it apart with an energy gun.   
  
Because they'd fought White Fang and probably saved the world, the Gundam pilots were allowed to disappear, and no official mention was made of an attempt to locate them. They reappeared only once, during the Mariemaia incident (most of which was also classified, this time by the Preventers), and then disappeared again.  
  
Julia sat back and stared. It was a lot of information, but the number of holes in the story was staggering, and by the number of notes that she'd made, Julia knew she had a lot of background research to do before she could even hope to understand what had happened back then.  
  
  
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When she got home, she and Daddy finished hooking up the engine, then turned it on. It ran remarkably smoothly, considering how old it was, and a low whine could be heard throughout the house. Daddy informed her that when stress was placed on the engine, the way most really good mobile suit pilots did, that low whine would rise to a screech that almost hurt the ears. The power in the thing was absolutely incredible, and if she hadn't been so interested in her new project, Julia probably would have asked if she could run some tests on it before they started to dismantle it. As it was, Daddy sent her to go find some schematics on the thing so that she'd know what they were doing when they started taking it apart tomorrow.  
  
Since it was her night to cook, Julia threw together a casserole and then put it in the oven to cook. She'd just finished that when Tousan got home early. She missed him coming in the door, and instead went to the 'workout' room. It was one room in the house that they'd basically left empty, except for a couple of mirrors and putting down a mat on the floor. She sank to her knees and sat on her heels with her eyes closed, waiting. She'd taken this position on purpose - there was a slight draft coming into the room from the hall, and here she could feel it on her face.  
  
When the breeze on her face disappeared for several seconds, she opened her eyes and raised her hands just in time to block the kick that Tousan was aiming at her face. By now she knew better than to try to absorb the full force of his kick with her arms, and instead allowed him to knock her backwards. She rolled over her shoulder and came up to her feet, hands held in front of her, eyes on her father. He was dressed in his normal green tank-top, but instead of jeans he was wearing a light pair of loose pants, similar to her gi. The first time they practiced together, he'd worn spandex shorts, of all things, and she'd nearly had a fit. She still hadn't managed to explain to him exactly what was wrong with him wearing spandex, but she'd convinced him that it really wasn't worth the trouble she'd cause when he wore it. Parents were not supposed to wear spandex, no matter if they had the bodies for it or not. She was not going to see her father in spandex.  
  
Without a word, he came after her again. His fists were clenched, and she could see the tension in his arms extending up into his shoulders. She knew from experience that trying to punch him was more like trying to punch a brick wall than an actual human being, and that she was better off trying to kick him or throw him. She ducked under his first punch and kicked him in the stomach, then moved on past him, trying to take advantage of her smaller size and better speed. She was dimly aware of Daddy watching from the doorway, but she didn't have the time to think about that now.  
  
She caught his hand as he tried to grab her, ducked under it, keeping a tight grip so that she twisted the joint, and applied enough pressure so that he'd have to fall or risk an injury. He did take the fall, but he latched onto her wrist as he did so and yanked, using his own momentum to send her flying. She automatically rolled when she hit the ground, but when she came to her feet, she was in the corner, which was exactly the spot that she'd been trying to avoid.   
  
About five seconds later she was lying on her stomach with her right arm twisted up behind her in a rather uncomfortable position. A second after that she slapped the mat. "All right, you got me."  
  
"You need to plant yourself, I never would have been able to do that if you had been pulling from your center," Tousan told her, extending a hand and pulling her to her feet. Tousan was the strongest person that Julia knew, and she wasn't exaggerating in the slightest. She was well aware of the fact that he pulled his punches when they practiced, and it was a good thing, too. She'd have been black and blue all over otherwise, and that would be a little difficult to explain at school. Oh, what, the bruises? Oh, that's no problem, my dad hit me, but I asked him to do it. Yeah, that was a good idea, if she really wanted to get both of her parents arrested.   
  
"Hai, I know, sorry."  
  
"You're the one who got thrown," he pointed out.  
  
"Yeah, I was actually aware of that one. Well, I lasted a little longer this time." The first time they'd practiced he'd rushed her just like he did tonight, and she'd been so surprised that she hadn't even moved to defend herself. After a while she got used to his rough-and-tumble method of teaching, and the first time he'd tried to sneak up on her while she still had her eyes closed, she hadn't been very surprised. Caught off guard, yes, surprised, no. Since then she'd devised several dozen ways of knowing when he was coming. There was a stair that squeaked, for one thing, and then there was the air... when the door was closed she put a piece of paper in it, or a piece of tape, and the tape ripping gave her warning.   
  
"How did you know I was coming?" he asked, staring at her.  
  
Julia blinked. Every other time she'd managed to catch him before he got to her, he'd known all the ploys that she used, and had even managed to counteract them a couple of times, much to her chagrin. It was very irritating to spend all that time preparing, only to have him already know what she was doing and how to make it all useless. "You don't know?" she asked.  
  
"No."  
  
Julia glanced over his shoulder at Duo-daddy, who gave her a big grin and a covert thumbs-up. "There's a breeze from the hallway," she explained. "When you came in you interrupted it for a couple seconds. Since I was on my knees, I figured you'd go for my head, so I moved to block there as soon as I felt the air stop."  
  
Tousan nodded shortly, and she could practically see the information being filed away. He'd been this way as long as she'd known him, anything that she knew that he didn't was quickly stored in his brain to be used against her in future matches. It was somewhat frustrating that a move that would take her hours or days to learn he could pick up after seeing it only once, but it wasn't as if he was doing it to irritate her. At least, she didn't think he was doing it to irritate her, he had a strange sense of humor sometimes. "Good job."  
  
Julia beamed at him. He didn't give many compliments, so any that she received meant that she really had done something very well. "That just made my day, Tousan!" she told him, and gave him a quick hug before backing away so that he couldn't use the lack of distance to catch her off-guard.   
  
"See, Hee-chan!" Daddy asked. "I told you, girls love to hear compliments!"  
  
Tousan flicked a quick glare at Daddy, then raised his fists again.  
  
  
-----------  
  
  
Julia got so involved in the practice that she almost forgot dinner. She wasn't sure who was more surprised when she suddenly turned tail and ran to the kitchen, Tousan, who she ran from, or Daddy, who she almost ran over in her hurry to get to the kitchen before the casserole burned. She managed to save most of it, though, with only a little bit burned around the edges of the pan, and five minutes later, announced that dinner was served.   
  
After she'd heard about their days, and had told them that school was fine, she decided that she might as well ask them some questions. Sure, they might have been teenagers when it happened, but they might know something about the Gundams and the war. At the very least they'd probably be able to explain all of these different political groups to her. "Ah, can I ask some questions?"  
  
"Julie, remember, we told you, you can always ask us questions," Daddy told her, exchanging a glance with Tousan.  
  
"OK, yeah, I remember. I started doing some research for my Gundam project, and I had some questions about some of the political groups. They're all kinda complicated, but I thought that since you actually lived through those times, you might have a better idea."  
  
"Sure, honey, go ahead. What were you wondering about?" Julia didn't miss the look that her parents exchanged, but decided not to ask them what was going on. She was getting the idea that the Gundams, or the war, was just a sensitive subject with people that were a certain age. Namely, anyone who had lived through the war.  
  
She momentarily debated going for her notes, then decided it wasn't worth it. She really didn't need to write things down to remember them, she just liked to have them in front of her. She closed her eyes momentarily, then asked, "When I was looking through the records, they said that the Gundams only attacked Alliance and Oz facilities. I thought that they were the same organization, or that Oz was some sort of subset of the Alliance, but it didn't sound that way. Do you know anything about that?"  
  
"You're right," Daddy said after a couple of seconds. "Both ways. They were two separate organizations, although Oz was supposed to be part of the Alliance. Technically, they were the Alliance's special forces unit, which meant that the best and the brightest went to them, while everyone else got stuck in the regular forces. But Oz decided that it didn't want to work for the Alliance any more, so one day they just rebelled and took over everything."  
  
"But weren't they outnumbered?"  
  
"Not by much - they'd been building up their numbers for years - and you have to remember, they caught the Alliance totally by surprise, and they had all of the most talented people on their side. It was a pretty well planned takeover."  
  
"Oh," Julia said, quickly assimilating the information. That, at least, explained why Daddy seemed to have so much knowledge about the two groups, if there was some sort of coup involved, it would quickly become public knowledge. "So for the rest of the war, Oz was in charge?"  
  
"Basically," Daddy hesitated, then looked at Tousan, who took over.  
  
"There were remnants of the Alliance scattered all over the globe and colonies, and most of those became rebels, fighting against Oz however they could. They weren't very effective."  
  
"Anything else, honey?" Daddy asked, staring at her soberly. This was the quietest that Julia could ever remember him being.   
  
"Um, nah, let me do some more looking on my own." Julia had been going to ask them about why she thought that it didn't make any sense for the Gundams to kill the Alliance 'doves,' as they were always referred to, but thought better of it. First of all, she didn't think they'd have the answer - she wasn't entirely sure where that thought had come from. Second, even though they were both making valiant efforts at not letting her know how much this topic bothered them, she knew it did, and she didn't want to upset them any more. "Ah, Daddy, do we have to keep going with class tonight?" she asked with a slight pout, as if she didn't want to have lessons with her father.  
  
As intended, her question lightened the mood. Daddy leaned forward and gave one of her pigtails a light yank. "Yessirree, you definitely have to have class tonight. Don't want your brain to atrophy, do we?"  
  
"Can your brain atrophy?" she asked curiously as she took another bite of her dinner.  
  
"You betcha! It happens more often then you'd think," Daddy told her. "You think that a person's got a brain, but it turns out that they haven't actually used it in twenty, maybe thirty years. I could name some people like that," he muttered under his breath.  
  
"Daddy, you're supposed to be a good influence for me," Julia told him.  
  
"Says who? Besides, I am a good influence, aren't I, Hee-chan?"  
  
Tousan gave him a doubtful stare. Finally he said, "Yes. For a gaijin."  
  
"See, I told you... for a what?!"  
  
Tousan smiled slightly, and Julia giggled again. "You asked," she pointed out oh-so-helpfully.   
  
Daddy gave her a cross-eyed look. "Where'd you get such a smart mouth?" he asked.   
  
"You, of course. I got my respectful mouth from my otousan." Julia spoke both English and Japanese fluently, in addition to a handful of other languages, but her family mostly spoke English at home, because they lived in a region where English was the primary language.   
  
"Hey, I can be respectful with the best of them. Really," he added when his family gave him some doubtful glances.  
  
"Uh-hu, well, I'm going to go finish my homework before you come on up. Can you get the dishes?" she asked, standing up and putting her empty plate in the sink.   
  
"Sure, no problem, Julie."  
  
  
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"So what were we up to?" Daddy asked a half-hour later, after she'd finished her homework.  
  
"Well, you said that you'd teach me some more about metal alloys after we looked at the damage to that engine."  
  
"That's right, I did. Anything interest you in particular, or do you want me to pick something?"  
  
"Actually, I was wondering about Gundanium alloy."   
  
He nearly flinched again, and she wondered why he was so sensitive to the topic. "Still thinking about your project, huh?"  
  
"Uh-hu. I was wondering... that damage we saw on the engine block, if it had been made out of Gundanium, would we have seen the same damage?"  
  
"Not a chance."  
  
"Really? Even after all the exposure?"  
  
"Gundanium's the strongest metal known to man," he told her. "It's incredibly difficult to work with, by the way, so you'd never actually see an engine made out of Gundanium. Mostly it's used for shields and things like that."  
  
"Like the Gundam's armor. Why is it so tough to work with?"  
  
"Well, it's incredibly resistant to heat and cold. Normally you shape metal by heating it until it melts and then shaping it, right?"  
  
"Hai."  
  
"Well, for Gundanium, you actually have to use a combination of heat, pressure, and subsonics to get it to soften enough to shape."  
  
"How do you know this?" she asked curiously.  
  
"It's basic knowledge about Gundanium," he said with a shrug. "Now do you want to see the molecular structure? It's incredibly well-organized, based off of some crystalline elements on Earth - that's why it's so strong - but Gundanium doesn't occur naturally anywhere."  
  
"Sure!"  
  
  
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Duo very carefully closed the door to Julia's room. His daughter had finally fallen asleep, nearly an hour after she went to bed. The first time he'd checked on her she'd feigned sleep, but he was an expert at those kinds of tricks. This time, her breathing had actually slowed, and she didn't tense up when he opened the door. He shut off the light in the hallway in front of her room and then went down to the kitchen, where Heero was sitting.  
  
"So what are we gonna do?" he asked rhetorically as he sat down next to his husband, reaching out to grasp one of Heero's hands.   
  
He didn't get a response, not that he was expecting one, so he continued, "Do you think she suspects?" His fingers started tracing the tiny scar on Heero's arm that was all that remained from the time he'd shot his future husband.  
  
"Iie."  
  
"She will soon enough, you know how smart she is."  
  
Heero finally turned to look at him, then pulled him in for a hug. "We always said that if she asked us, we would tell her the truth."  
  
"Yeah, I know, I just wish that she'd waited a little longer."  
  
"She isn't a child."  
  
"Well, we're hardly the ones to judge that, are we?" Duo's voice held a hint of wry humor in it. "I don't think comparing her against our own experiences is the wisest course of action." He raised his head from where it had been resting against Heero's shoulder. "Heero, if she finds out about us, eventually we're going to have to tell her about herself."  
  
"Hn."  
  
"I know that I should try not to worry about it, but... that's a hell of a thing to spring on a person. She may never trust us again."  
  
Heero had no response for that, and after several minutes of silence, Duo sighed. "Oh well, I guess we'll have to make it up as we go along. We were always pretty good at that... or was it terrible? Things worked out ok, didn't they?"  
  
Heero tilted his head to the side slightly, studying Duo's face. "I have you, and I have Julia," he stated.  
  
Duo had to smile at that. "Yeah, we do have her, don't we? I guess things turned out pretty well."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Well, sorry for taking so long going over all of that information, but I wanted to make it clear what she was working with. I'm sort of guessing and picking out what I think would have become part of public record, as opposed to what would be considered confidential. As you can see, there are quite a few chunks missing, which she will hopefully start piecing together as time passes. I got most of the timeline information from gundamofficial.com and gundamxl.com.  
Marika  



	3. Part 3

Julia was in a foul mood, and she didn't want to take it out on anyone else, so she was glad when she got home and discovered that both of her parents were still at work. Actually, it was probably a good thing that she didn't have aikido today, because she was entirely in the wrong mind-set to get anything accomplished, although she probably would have managed to hurt herself or someone else.   
  
It wasn't that anything had gone wrong, it was that nothing was going particularly right. She'd thrown herself into her project with an intensity that was probably obsessive, and one that would have been frightening to most people. She'd been immersing herself in the not-so-distant past for the last two weeks, and very little of what she'd found seemed to make any sense. That was all right, she'd been expecting to put together information, but it wasn't that the information didn't make any logical sense, it was more that her mind refused to accept it. She felt a kind of shocked horror that this sort of information had to be hunted for, and it was this part of the information that she couldn't, wouldn't accept. It should be a part of public record, not to mention taught in the schools, so that it wasn't forgotten, so that it never happened again.   
  
When she learned about the history of the war in school, the teacher and books went on in great length about the friction between the various Earth governments, and about the formation of the Earth-Sphere Alliance, and then about the constant battles between those countries who had joined and those who had not. There was, of course, mention of Heero Yuy, the pacifistic ambassador from the colonies, who was assassinated in the mid-seventies. There was even a little mention of the colonies' desire for peace and independence prior to the appearance of the Gundams, although there was a lot more attention given to it after the appearance of the Gundams, as the various authors of the books tried to explain what could cause people to go out and commit atrocities on the level that the Gundam pilots did. But as far as she could tell, none of those authors had done any kind of research when they were writing their papers, since most of them insisted that the Gundams were supported by some tiny extremist faction in the colonies.   
  
A little bit of basic research about the Gundams, combined with what Daddy had told her, convinced her that her initial instincts had been right, that it couldn't be some tiny little group. The Gundams, if they were anything like the image she was slowly building in her head, were just too expensive for one minor extremist faction to build. A substantial part of the population must have had some idea that countermeasures were being taken, even if they only donated money to the cause. So, the logical conclusion from that was that there had to be a good reason for that many people to be willing to support the construction of machines capable of mass destruction. So she went looking for evidence of that.   
  
And she found it, which was the current cause of her disgust and horror with the entire situation. How could this stuff be omitted from the books? It had taken some looking, but the information wasn't concealed, just... tucked away. Martial law imposed on the colonies for months, years at a time... constant military occupation of the pacifist colonies... their freedom and independence taken from them by force years before... no freedom of speech, no freedom to speak of at all, communications between the colonies were eliminated, except for military communiques... plagues, horrible plagues for which cures were known, plagues that would have been dealt with in a matter of weeks on Earth, which were allowed to sweep through the slums of the poorer colonies, killing anywhere from 1/2 to 7/8 of the population.   
  
At this point she'd stopped to think. One of the few things that she did know about her parents' background was that they were both from the colonies. They probably weren't aware that she knew it, but she'd figured it out years ago. She'd had a friend when she was little whose parents had come from the colonies, and there were certain mannerisms, certain speech patterns and assumptions they made in everyday life that made it obvious, once you figured out what you were looking at. Like always closing doors. In the colonies, most doors to houses and sometimes to individual rooms were sealed so tightly that in case there was a breach through the outer wall of the colony and the air started escaping, you'd stand a good chance of surviving until it could be patched up. Or eating every single thing on your plate. There wasn't much extra food in the colonies, and even if there had been, there was a limited amount of space with which to dispose of it. So you ate everything, and made sure that there was very little that actually had to be thrown away, instead of reused or recycled. Living in a place where everything was balanced so delicately certainly led them to be more ecologically conscious.  
  
So, because nothing was ever simple, that raised the question of why none of this was ever mentioned, or included in the curriculum. Well, the immediate answer was easy - the Alliance probably did not allow people to speak or write about what was really happening in the colonies. And since communication and travel between the colonies was so restricted, it would be difficult to get the word out. But that didn't explain why nothing had been said later on, why it wasn't known now. The information she'd found hadn't been hidden, just difficult-to-find. She momentarily played with the idea of the current United Earth Government deliberately suppressing the information, then abandoned that idea. They were not in the business of trying to hide the sins of the past governments - if they had, she never would have found what she had. So why wasn't it there?  
  
She couldn't think of anything, and was on the verge of asking one of her parents when an idea occurred to her. She'd been trying to avoid talking to her parents about her research project whenever possible, because she didn't want to upset them, but that itself gave her an idea. The few adults she had talked to already all reacted in different fashions, but the reaction was always negative. It was a difficult thing for her to grasp, something that would affect an entire generation that way, make them close up, or frown, or shudder in horror or fear or she didn't even know what else. Sometimes things she saw in her parents made her think they felt guilty or something, although that didn't make much sense, they'd only been kids during the war. Of course, emotional responses rarely had anything to do with logic. Maybe they'd known someone who died in the war, and felt guilty for not stopping it, even if there was nothing they could do. She certainly wasn't going to invade their privacy by asking them. There were some things it was OK to ask your parents about that they probably wouldn't tell you on their own, wars from their childhoods were not one of them.   
  
It was entirely possible that it was just something that most people didn't want to think about, let alone relive by writing a lot about it. She wasn't willing to let it lie at that, but it was a good enough explanation for now.   
  
So she'd gotten some things accomplished in the last few weeks. The lack of answers was frustrating, but she'd expected that. The information she'd found that should be readily available but wasn't irritated her to the point of anger, but that wasn't what had her stomping around her room, kicking a pillow across the floor to see how far she could get it to bounce off the wall. She could get it to bounce pretty far. While she was chasing her pillow around the room, at least she wasn't doing something else, like punching the wall. It was better than actually destroying something, which is what she really wanted to do, but it probably wasn't a good idea to give in to those impulses.   
  
The main frustration right now was Mrs. Kinley. Today Julia had had her fourth meeting with her 'advisor', and her first real fight. After the uncomfortable silences in the first meeting, it only got worse from there. Mrs. Kinley was completely unreasonable about the Gundam pilots, refusing to even think about what their motives might have been. She was very quiet and usually pretty polite about it, but most of her arguments came down to the fact that the pilots were responsible for everything bad that had happened during the war, and that they were nothing more than mindless killers. In short, she hated the pilots. And Julia still hadn't been able to bring herself to ask why. It didn't seem right, but...  
  
Julia abruptly came to a decision, and abandoned her pillow-kicking to sit at her computer. Within seconds she was on the internet, searching for information. There was something not quite right with this picture, that she wasn't willing to ask her teacher for information because it was rude, but that she was willing to look for information on her on the internet. She shrugged to herself and decided to put the issue aside for now.  
  
By the time that Tousan and Daddy got home a few hours later, she had her answer. Mrs. Kinley used to have a brother who was a soldier. He was killed during the war in a Gundam pilot attack.   
  
Julia cleared the information and quickly hid her tracks, then shut off her computer. Then she sat and stared at the blank screen for a while. What was she supposed to do now? From the beginning, she'd wanted to give an even, balanced report. All that she'd found in the last few weeks had only made her more interested in the Gundam pilots than ever before. She wanted to know more about them, what sort of situations they came from in the colonies, and why they did the horrible things that they did. And were they so horrible... well, she wasn't quite ready to think about that yet. But she hadn't decided to do this to vilify the pilots, which was what Mrs. Kinley seemed bent on doing. If Julia wanted to do that, she could have looked at any one of the hundreds of books on the topic. It was easy enough to write that way, after all, the Gundam pilots weren't going to show up and dispute any of their arguments.   
  
She heard the front door open and close, and a couple seconds later, heard footsteps. "Welcome home, Tousan!" she shouted without bothering to turn or even open the door to her room. She knew it was Tousan because he had this funny little ritual, where he always stopped to see who was in a room before he entered it. She'd seen it so many times she could even picture it in her head - the door opened, and his eyes quickly swept over the entire room. Once he'd seen where everyone was, he took one step into the room to look at the corners that he hadn't been able to seen before, then continued normally. It was kinda cute, actually.  
  
In response, she got some sort of muffled grunt that she couldn't quite make out through the door and halfway across the house. Actually, that didn't make much of a difference, if she could hear his footsteps on the floor at that distance, she could certainly hear his voice. That grunt probably would have been indistinct even if she was standing right next to him.   
  
She heard footsteps coming closer and then there was a knock on her door. "Come in," she called, then turned as the door opened. Her otousan quickly glanced around the room, took a single step into it, checked the two corners he'd missed before, then stepped normally into the room and closed the door behind him. "How was your day?" he asked.  
  
"OK," she answered with a slight shrug. She wasn't sure if she was ready to talk about what had happened, or admit what she'd done yet. "You?"  
  
"Fine."  
  
Julia loved her otousan dearly, but she had some difficulty talking to him sometimes. Or maybe it was a great deal of difficulty. Now was one of those times. After a short strained silence, she ventured, "I got a hundred on my math test."  
  
"Good."   
  
Julia stared at her father in surprise. That was more of a response then she usually got. "Is everything all right, Tousan?" she asked.   
  
He stared at her for a second, clearly not sure what to say next. Finally he said, "Daisuki."  
  
"Daisuki, Tousan," she replied, standing up to give him a hug. "Is everything all right? Is Daddy OK?"  
  
Tousan just stared at her for another second, then shook his head slightly. "He's fine. I just... had a long day."  
  
Julia eyed her father suspiciously. He generally wasn't vocal enough to get into evasions, but this sounded suspiciously like one. "You're sure?" she asked. "Nothing's wrong? I thought you said your day went fine."  
  
"I was being polite," he said shortly, his lips curling upwards slightly. "Duo's been coaching me."  
  
Julia giggled, although she knew that he was just trying to change the subject. "I'll tell him that you did very well. That was very polite of you. Now, would you please tell me why you had a long day?"  
  
  
-----------  
  
  
Since Tousan was the one making dinner that night, it was pretty good. He might not like the chore very much, but he was a more than fair cook when he put his mind to it.   
  
"Hey, Julie, why are you so quiet?" Daddy asked as he finished scraping the last of the food off his plate. Once it was in his mouth, he leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head and somehow making a contented sound around the mouthful of food.   
  
After Tousan had explained why it had been a long day (a new employee accidentally crashed his computer and nearly took down the network, then several people some how mistook *him* for the company technician, and thought that he was supposed to help them - how they made that mistake, Julia would never guess), she'd gone back to her quiet study of the blank screen. She had no idea what she should do with what she'd found out. Should she go to the class advisor and ask for a different mentor? But then she'd have to say why, and probably admit to what she'd done. But she wasn't sure if she could work with Mrs. Kinley...  
  
Julia started out of her thoughts to look at Daddy's expectant face. "I... ah..." she stammered, then recklessly decided to tell them what had happened. "Mrs. Kinley and I had a fight."  
  
Daddy blinked. "Mrs. Kinley? Your mentor?"  
  
Julia nodded nervously. Her parents, both together and separately, had given her several uses on the appropriate use of her gifts, and she was pretty sure that they weren't going to be happy with her actions earlier today. But she hadn't actually hacked anything... well, not much.  
  
"Why?"   
  
"She... see, I've been trying to figure out what was going on in the colonies, trying to figure out why they sent the Gundams to Earth." Once again as she said the word 'Gundam', she saw reactions from both of her parents. "And... well, she just seems to think that they were nothing more than bloodthirsty terrorists. I mean, I know they were terrorists, everyone knows that, and they did kill a lot of people, but that's not the entire story, right?" She looked at the two of them for confirmation, but neither responded. "So anyway, she just hates the Gundam pilots, but I didn't know why, so I... ah... I sorta went on the internet and looked for information on her. I know I shouldn't have," she quickly continued, "but I was trying to understand, and I didn't want to ask her and get her upset..."  
  
"It's all right, honey," Daddy finally answered. "Although I'm glad that you recognize that there might be better ways to handle this situation."  
  
Julia nodded guiltily. "I know, and I'm sorry. But... I found out why she hates them so much. She had a brother, and he was killed by one of the Gundam pilots." She paused as Daddy closed his eyes for several seconds, then he opened them and she continued. "But I don't know what I can do now. I'm not sure I can work with her, but I can't go tell someone that I need to change mentors because I went behind my mentor's back and found something like this out about her! I don't know what to do."  
  
"That's a difficult situation," Daddy said after a long silence. "Just how much does she affect your project?"  
  
Julia thought for a few seconds. "Not that much, if I don't want her to. I mean, I'm required to have a meeting with her every week, but that's about it. But if she gets really mad at me, she can kill my grade."  
  
"But if she does that for no good reason, you can protest it, can't you?" he pressed. This was the way her parents always operated, for as long as she could remember. She could come to them for advice for just about anything, and they would do the best they could to give it to her, but they never did anything for her. They gave her solutions that she could use herself, except for the one or two occasions when there simply hadn't been anything that she could do. In those instances, they had taken care of the situation almost the moment she told them.  
  
Julia nodded slowly, seeing where this was leading. "And if it comes to that, what happened to her brother will probably come out anyway. I won't be doing anything wrong, even if I don't do what she tells me to."  
  
"What's she telling you to do?" Daddy demanded, his eyes narrowing dangerously.  
  
Julia shook her head. "She didn't come out and say it, but basically she wanted me to write another one of those pieces of garbage that are written about the Gundam pilots, you know, the ones with no historical references, just saying how horrible the Gundam pilots are. I want to write an actual research paper."  
  
"You think those papers are garbage?" Daddy asked her soberly, and Julia realized that she might have said something that would really bother her parents. She wished she had thought about that before she opened her mouth. Even if some of the colonists supported the Gundams, they had killed a lot of people, and the colonies had disowned them. Hearing their daughter say that the Gundams might be something other than just 'murdering terrorists' had to be hard for them.  
  
Julia bit her lip. "I mean... I don't know whether they're right or not, but they haven't done any sort of research to back up so much of what they claim. They just rely on public curiosity and outrage to sell their work. I... I may or may not end up writing something like that, but if I do, it's going to have some actual research behind it, not just hysterical yelling." She looked at them anxiously, hoping that they wouldn't be too upset.  
  
To her surprise, Duo-daddy smiled. "I'm very proud of you, Julie, for looking for the truth and not just taking the easy way out."  
  
Julia blinked. She wasn't quite sure what she had been expecting (had she honestly thought that they would tell her she was a bad person for wanting to find out the truth?) but this wasn't it. After a couple of seconds, she swallowed, and spurned on by his encouragement, asked something she'd been wondering about for a long time. "Um... you guys are from the colonies, right?"  
  
Her fathers exchanged a startled glance, one that almost looked alarmed. Then Daddy said, "Yeah, we are. I'm from L2, originally, and Heero is from L1. How did you know?"  
  
Julia shrugged slightly. "It's just little things that you do. Remember Amy? From elementary school? Her mother was from the colonies, and she did a lot of the same stuff you do," she said, and told them a little of what she'd observed.   
  
They exchanged another unreadable look. After another silence, Daddy said, "That's very good. You're very observant."  
  
Julia smiled briefly at them both. Her Duo-daddy was a lot more easy-going than Tousan, but if he gave her a compliment, it was still something to be taken seriously. "So anyway, I was wondering if I could just ask you a couple of questions. Nothing really specific, just a little bit about it was like living in the colonies. I know that you were just kids when this stuff happened, but... Please?" she ended hopefully.   
  
Another glance, then Daddy said uncomfortably, "Sure, honey, you ask away. If we have the answers, we'll give them to you."  
  
"Thanks. Um, were the colonies really under martial law? I mean, curfews and everything?"   
  
Duo-daddy closed his eyes for a second before he responded. "Ah, not in my colony, sweetie. But that was mostly because the Alliance didn't care enough to control it that way. There wasn't anything valuable enough for them to worry about. Mostly they just controlled every bit of trade that did go on within the colony, and cut us off from everyone else, so we couldn't get any relief."  
  
"Relief?" she asked softly, trying to understand, a little, what he was talking about. She had a feeling that things had been much worse than he could ever tell her, but she wanted... no, needed... to understand some part of what her parents had gone through, of the time that she was immersing herself in.   
  
"Most of the L2 colonies were in an economic slump before Heero Yuy was assassinated," Daddy said with a glance at his husband. "From there it went downhill fast. Most of the colony I grew up on was a slum. I don't even think any of the other colonies knew what was happening there," he muttered, almost to himself. "I sure as hell know that Earth didn't. But any relief that could have been sent... wasn't allowed to reach the people, at least not that I saw."  
  
Julia wanted to ask more, but when she saw the look in Daddy's eyes, she bit her lip. It was too much, she didn't want to upset him, not like this. She'd known that what happened before and during the war must have been bad for the colonists, but she didn't think it would be this bad. His face... it almost seemed dead, his eyes looked like holes staring out of his face. Julia closed her eyes for a second, not wanting to see that expression on her father's face. It didn't belong there, it was just wrong to see an expression like that on your parent's face - she knew it was absolutely ridiculous, parents were people just like anyone else, her fathers weren't perfect or immortal or anything, but it just seemed wrong to see him weak like that.   
  
She opened her eyes... and stared. Her father was looking at her with a faintly curious expression, a slight smile on his face. "Sorry about that, honey. Does that answer your question?" There was absolutely no sign of that half-dead expression he'd just been wearing, no sign that he'd been upset at all.  
  
Julia might have been young, but she hadn't been born yesterday, and she certainly wasn't stupid. She knew that that was not a healthy reaction to have to something like that, but she didn't know what to do about it. Glancing at Tousan, she saw a slight bit of concern in his eyes, and relaxed. He'd seen the problem and he'd help Duo-daddy, later, when she wasn't around. She smiled weakly. "Ah, yeah, that's fine, thanks." She promised herself that she would never bring this topic up again.  
  
"Guess it's your turn, Hee-chan," Daddy said, turning his eyes towards his husband.  
  
Julia started to shake her head, saying that it wasn't necessary, but Tousan had already begun to speak. "I spent much of my... youth traveling," he said. "There were many restrictions upon the freedoms of the colonies." His emotionless recitation clashed strongly with what she'd just seen from Duo-Daddy, it was more like he was giving a report in school, not telling her about something he'd actually witnessed. In a way, it was just as disturbing to see as Daddy's reaction. "There were also rebels there, although for the most part they were completely ineffectual." His voice had a hint of disapproval in it, and Julia wondered at it. "The Alliance crushed them wherever they found them. The common people were too frightened to do anything to fight for their freedom. But there was reason for that fear." He paused, then nodded his head slightly, as if he'd reviewed what he just said and approved of it.   
  
"Ah, thanks," Julia said, and promised herself that she wouldn't bring up the topic around him, either. It didn't seem to have upset him the way it did Duo-daddy, but that reaction didn't seem healthy, either. They finished the rest of dinner and silently cleaned up, and then Julia headed up to her room. Something about what her otousan had told her was bothering her, and she wanted to chase it down.  
  
She felt sort of bad for analyzing her father this way, but she was curious, and she almost always followed things that made her curious. It wasn't as if it could really hurt anyone, anyway.   
  
Throwing herself onto her bed, she bounced once, then rolled over on her back to stare at the ceiling. She took out a small set of balls and began juggling them, just a simple pattern, something to keep her hands occupied while she thought. The ceiling hadn't changed since the last time she lay on her bed and stared at it. I really ought to do something about that, she thought lazily, allowing her mind to drift. This was the best way to figure something out, to bring it to the surface, much better than concentrating on it and driving herself crazy. Maybe I should paint a maze on it or something. It would be more interesting than off-white, at least.  
  
Now, Tousan... He had spoken, and something had been wrong. He said he traveled around a lot. I wonder what he did? Julia smiled to herself. Maybe he was a circus performer, like Trowa. The thought was enough to make her giggle. She didn't know much about the histories of her uncles, either, but they'd taken her to a circus when she was younger, and Trowa took her back behind the tents, introduced her to the lions, and then introduced her to his sister. She'd seen Cathy a few times since then, and each time wondered if Cathy was actually Trowa's sister or if she was a sister to Trowa like Quatre and Daddy were 'brothers'. In any case, Cathy had told her that a while back, Trowa had been in the circus. Even better, he'd been a clown in the circus. She couldn't imagine the quiet and often-solemn Trowa being a clown, but she wouldn't have pegged Quatre as a multi-billionaire, either. Cathy now ran quite a bit of the circus, but when she was younger, she'd been a knife-thrower. She'd promised to teach Julia how to do it someday, but every time Julia asked, she was told to wait 'until she was a little older.'   
  
In any case, the thought of Tousan as a circus clown was even more unlikely than the thought of Trowa as a clown.   
  
No, she had a hard time picturing Tousan as a member of any sort of group like that. He probably traveled around with... who? She was assuming that it wouldn't be his family. His guardians, maybe? Maybe they were merchants or something like that. Not Alliance officials, he wouldn't have spoken of the Alliance with such scorn if that had been the case. Not rebels, either, it hadn't sounded like he thought any more of them...  
  
Her eyes flew open, and the small balls dropped onto her stomach as she lost the pattern. That was it! That was what had been bothering her! Her father had listed a number of groups during his discussion, but he'd never acted as though he were a member of any one of them! Her brow furrowed as she replayed the conversation in her head - he'd spoken against the Alliance, the Rebels, and the common people... what did that leave?   
  
Well, a lot, actually. Common people was a fairly vague term. So, for that matter, was Rebel. Alliance was pretty straightforward, although as she'd learned with that entire confusion between Oz and the Alliance, it wasn't quite as simple as it seemed. But Rebel... well, if he meant anyone that spoke out against the Alliance, that covered a lot of territory, if he meant people who had been branded Rebels by the Alliance, that covered less, and if he meant the people who'd actually picked up weapons to fight against the Alliance, that covered even less. And the phrase 'common people' had so many different meanings that it was useless to try to narrow them down without more information.   
  
Julia sighed. Well, she'd figured out what she'd missed, but she wasn't going to be able to find out more about her father's past from it. Too bad.  
  
I wonder where the Gundam pilots came from? The thought popped into her mind almost automatically. A good many of her thoughts nowadays came to this conclusion. It was inevitable, she was spending so much time concentrating on them, and there was so much that was unknown about them, that any query she had about anyone naturally applied to the pilots as well.   
  
It would be nearly impossible to tell, after all, no one knew who they were, much less where they'd come from.   
  
Hmm... There was something tickling the edges of her mind, but it refused to surface.   
  
After a few minutes of concentration failed to raise anything, Julia shrugged to herself and went to her computer. In the past few days she'd found numerous references to '04's support troops', whatever that meant. She'd thought that Gundams were completely self-sufficient, but apparently 04 had... well, someone following him around, at least. She wanted to track that down before she forgot about it.  
  
  
----------  
  
  
"Stop!"  
  
Julia jolted out of a deep sleep at the shout that echoed through the house. She automatically slapped her hand down on the alarm clock and rolled out of bed, and was two steps across the room when she realized several very important facts: 1. Her alarm hadn't gone off. 2. It was still dark out. 3. It was the middle of the night. 4. She'd woken up because someone had screamed.   
  
Throwing off the last vestiges of sleep, Julia silently walked to the door of her bedroom and eased it open. She only opened it a crack, and then listened. It took some work, but she managed to focus her hearing on her parent's room, ignoring the sounds of the television show their neighbors were watching. When she was younger, she used to get headaches because of everything that she was listening to, but her fathers had explained that she just had to concentrate on whatever conversation she was interested in, and filter out everything else. It took some work, but Julia learned to do it, and now it was completely automatic, unless she wanted to listen in on something that was somewhat distant, like this. She figured that everyone had these problems, and that she just had a little more trouble dealing with it than most people because of the way her mind worked.   
  
In a couple of seconds, she'd filtered out the neighbor's tv and heard heavy breathing coming from her parents' room through their closed door. "Shh, it's all right," said a soft voice. It took her several seconds to identify it as Tousan. His voice was different, it sounded so... gentle. It wasn't that she thought he was unfeeling, or that he didn't love her, but he did not express those feelings well. His awkward statement this afternoon was highly unusual, strained though it had been. Come to think of it, she'd never really figured out why he'd been acting so strange. It didn't sound like he'd had a good day, but it didn't sound like he'd had a *bad* day, either, not enough to account for it. It was almost as if he needed some reassurance that she still loved him, but that didn't make any sense. Why on Earth would he think that she didn't love him anymore? Maybe it just had been a bad day.  
  
Julia's attention snapped back to her parents' room as she heard a second voice. "I'm all right." It sounded like a hoarse whisper, and Julia could barely hear it. It took her another several seconds to recognize Daddy's voice. It sounded... she didn't know what it sounded like, she'd never heard him speak that way before.  
  
"Which one was it?" That was Tousan, again speaking in that very soft, gentle voice.  
  
A weak bark of laughter, then a slight snort, then Daddy responded, "Maxwell again. What else would it be?"  
  
Julia frowned slightly. Why would her father be talking about... having bad dreams about... his own last name?   
  
After a few seconds, Daddy continued again, "I should have expected it, after Julie brought it up..."  
  
Julia gasped, and the voices in the other room immediately went silent. Without waiting, Julia silently eased the door closed, then hurried back to bed and buried herself under the covers. Several seconds later, she heard the door to her room open.   
  
Counting silently, she made sure that her breathing was slow and even, and almost a minute later, she heard the door close, and breathed a silent sigh of relief. Her parents didn't know that she knew that trick, and she'd prefer to keep it that way, so she let them catch her laying their pretending to sleep every so often.   
  
After he left, she didn't move back to the door. Truth be told, she'd already been feeling a little guilty about listening in on her parents' conversation, but her curiosity had gotten the best of her. Now the danger of getting caught was more than enough to tip the balance in the other direction. Besides, she had plenty to think about now, anyway. Something *she'd* said had given Daddy nightmares. Asking him about his past had given him nightmares bad enough for him to wake up screaming? And what did Maxwell have to do with it?  
  
With those disturbing questions in her mind and a heavy feeling of guilt resting in her heart, she finally drifted off into a restless sleep.  
  
  
----------  
  
  
"She's asleep," Heero reported as he returned to their bedroom and climbed back into bed beside Duo.  
  
Duo chuckled, but it sounded forced, and Heero wrapped his arms around the slightly smaller man. "She certainly does sleep well, sometimes I think you could land Wing on the house and she wouldn't wake up. And that's a good thing," he added after a moment's thought.   
  
Heero nodded, knowing what his koi was talking about. Even so many years after the war, neither of them slept particularly well or deeply. Especially right after Julia first came to them, he'd found himself waking every time she rolled over or made a sound that he didn't recognize, in addition to the dozens of feedings that were necessary throughout the night. That she could sleep so deeply was a sign that she really felt safe, that she didn't have to worry about who would sneak up on her if she didn't wake at the slightest sound.   
  
"Are you all right?" Heero asked slowly, after hesitating for several seconds. Even after all these years, he sometimes wasn't sure how to handle himself when it came to emotional issues, especially involving Duo.   
  
"I'll be fine. Like I said, I should have expected it," he said, shaking his head slightly. His eyes were still hidden by his bangs, so Heero couldn't be sure of how he really felt. "Do you think I upset her too much?"  
  
"Hn. No more than me." To be honest, Heero wasn't entirely certain what their daughter thought about their responses to her question. She'd seemed worried, though. He didn't doubt that he'd confused her this afternoon, but he'd needed to hear it, before she found out about their pasts. There was no doubt in his mind that she would, it was just a matter of how long.   
  
"I called Quatre today, to warn him," Duo commented. "I just thought that he ought to know what's going to happen."  
  
"And?" Heero asked, when Duo hesitated.  
  
"He already knew," Duo snorted softly. "I don't know why I was surprised. He said that Katie told him about it a couple of weeks ago."   
  
Heero blinked, then shrugged slightly. He probably should have anticipated that Quatre and Trowa's daughter would already know about something like this. It didn't really matter, anyway - it wasn't as if she didn't know how to keep a secret, and Quatre and Trowa should know about this.  
  
"I warned Wufei, too, and he said that he'd pass word along to Sally. He's... a little worried, but he says that if we need help with anything, they'll provide it. Otherwise, they'll let us deal with it."  
  
Heero nodded slightly, that sounded like Wufei.  
  
"Quatre also offered help, if we need it, but he didn't think there was much we could do about it. I didn't ask him if Katie told him what happened or not. I don't think I want to know." He sighed, then settled a little more comfortably into Heero's arms. "You know how lucky Julia is? Sometimes I'm so grateful for it, that she didn't end up like Katie, and then... I feel so guilty. I don't know how Quatre and Trowa have managed."  
  
"They're Gundam pilots," Heero said without thinking. It was true, in a way. Being a Gundam pilot meant that you dealt with whatever came your way, and that you didn't give up. It was as simple as that. It also wasn't the best thing he could have said at the moment, and he realized that an instant after the words left his mouth.  
  
Duo's entire body tensed, and Heero tightened his grip on his koi. "Yeah, I know, I'm just glad we have Julia, you know?"  
  
"She's our daughter."  
  
"Yeah, I know."  
  
Heero waited several minutes, then asked, "Do you want to go back to sleep?"   
  
The way Duo's body tensed up gave him his answer before he even spoke. "No... not yet. I just want to stay like this for a while."  
  
  
  
  
All right, another longish author's note. First of all, I know it may seem like there's an awful amount of evidence for Julia to see, but I'm going under the assumption that the last things you question are things that are closest to you. As for what happened in the colonies during the Alliance's occupation, aside from the little mentioned in the Episode Zeros for all the pilots, I haven't been able to find any official information, so I'm making it up as I go along. If anyone knows of anything official that I've got wrong, please let me know.   
Also I wanted to thank Julia, Kelly, Ari, RavynFyre, and anyone else I missed who sent me information on various Japanese words. The help was very much appreciated.  
Marika 10/2/01  



	4. Part 4

Julia woke up, feeling rather less rested than usual. She was quiet and somewhat surly over breakfast, and of course, she couldn't tell her parents why she hadn't slept well. That would have gone over really well, yeah, I couldn't sleep last night after I listened in on your conversation about the nightmare you had because of the questions that I asked you. Not that Julia was feeling guilty or anything.   
  
She sort of drifted through the first half of the school day without really hearing anything that the teachers were saying. It didn't really matter, she knew most of it anyway and she could always fake it if she didn't. She'd read her school books through in the first week of classes, so this was mostly review for her. What little she couldn't get from the books, she could reason out on her own. There were times when she wondered why she even bothered going to school.  
  
She decided to skip lunch and instead headed for a computer lab. Maybe some work would shake her out of her foul mood.   
  
Before she'd gone to bed the night before, she had managed to pin down those elusive references to '04's support troops'. It seemed that there were between twenty and forty mobile suits, all in colors adapted for desert combat, that followed Gundam 04 around to a number of its battles.   
  
What that suggested to her was fascinating, enough so that she momentarily forgot everything she'd heard last night. What it meant, she thought, was that not only did the Gundams originally have the support of the colonies, the pilots (or at least one of them) were the type of people who could gain a following. The support troops were not Gundams, not by a long shot. They were fairly advanced mobile suits, but they didn't have the same kind of shielding or weapons that all of the Gundams had, and they still followed 04 into battles where they were vastly outnumbered and often in a weaker position. The men in those suits were in danger, even more so than the Gundam pilot, there must have been something there that made them willing to follow him into battle.  
  
Julia found it difficult to believe that it was just the Gundam pilot, although the evidence suggested it, quite strongly. If the support troops were just fighting because of what was going on in the colonies, why weren't they fighting by themselves, or with all of the Gundams? Either of those behavior patterns would have made sense if they were just fighting for the colonies at large, but they weren't, they were following 04 around. The few times they were sighted away from 04 (from what she could tell) they were always working in conjunction with that pilot, either coordinating their attacks at exactly the same time, or attacking places that clearly had some connection to the target of Gundam 04. So they weren't just fighting alongside a Gundam, they were following the pilot himself.  
  
And that thought was just weird. She didn't respect them much, but she had read a lot of those articles about the horrible terrorists, it was very difficult to picture them being the sort of people that could gain a following.   
  
But she was getting somewhere, Julia realized after a moment's thought. It never would have occurred to most people to even consider the possibility that one of the pilots might be worth following. They were terrorists, plain and simple. But no one ever questioned that people like Zechs Marquise were worth following, and he had hundreds of kills under his belt before the Gundams ever showed up. What was it that made him simply a good soldier and the Gundam pilots monsters? Well, there was the fact that they were terrorists, but... they attacked military targets. Except for the incident involving Gundam 01b destroying a bunch of colonies (and she still had no idea why that had happened), the Gundams had never attacked anything but military targets. Even when they killed the Alliance doves (another incident that just didn't make sense - she was missing far too many pieces of the puzzle), that could still count as a military target. When you looked at it that way, Oz and the Alliance had killed more civilians with their wars and what they did to the colonies than the Gundams possibly could have! But the Gundam pilots were still the bad guys...  
  
She did have to admit that even the top mobile suit pilots for both the Alliance and Oz never racked up numbers of kills close to any of the pilots, and the people that they were killing were clearly 'the enemy', members of noncomplying nations. To the people of those nations, surely those mobile suit pilots were just as bad as the Gundams. It was just that most of the world was part of the Alliance, so there were that many people who saw the Gundams of the enemy. But that didn't make them monsters, did it?  
  
Maybe it was because of the politics involved. Zechs Marquise (aka the Lightening Count, aka Milliardo Peacecraft - she really needed to figure out what was going on with him) had been working for a legitimate government for most of his career when he was out killing people. Was that the difference?  
  
But the Gundam pilots were there because of politics, too. The thought jumped into her head before she knew it, and froze. The idea was so simple, and so obvious, she couldn't believe that she hadn't seen it before. Had they actually expected to topple the Alliance (or Oz) when they were sent, or were they just sent to gain attention? Surely that had been part of their mission - to get people to look at the colonies to figure out why they sent the Gundams to Earth. Nothing else had worked, not the protests that were staged by the colonists when the colonies were first taken over by the Alliance, not the pacifistic teachings of Heero Yuy, not even his assassination; none of that had brought enough attention to the colonies to force the Alliance to stop what they were doing.  
  
They must have been desperate. The colonies were being smothered, and no one on Earth seemed to care. And the Gundams did get people's attention. Since her initial investigation, she'd discovered that shortly after all of the Gundams disappeared for that four-month period, and before the colonies repudiated the Gundams, Oz had been quietly courting the colonies, offering support against the Alliance and promising all sorts of freedoms that were never actually granted. After about a month, the colonies suddenly accepted Oz's overtures, and in the same moment, repudiated the Gundams.  
  
Once again Julia was caught by that thought, imagining what it must have been like for the pilots in that situation. They were the ones who'd gotten Oz to take a look at the colonies (probably in hopes of stopping the pilots' attacks), and the first thing the colonies did with their newfound influence was turn on the very people who'd made it possible. The betrayal...  
  
Julia actually shook her head slightly, trying to dispel the thoughts, to concentrate on the task at hand. She was thinking about why the pilots were looked on as monster when those around them, who committed the same sorts of crimes (although not with the same sort of numbers, she had to admit), were not treated the same world.  
  
Maybe it was because they were faceless. It was easy to hate an enemy who was known only for the number of bodies he left behind. When the soldiers were fighting an enemy, it was usually in battle, against other soldiers in similar weapons. That was entirely different from an enemy that materialized out of nowhere, killed hundreds or thousands with no discernable effort, and then disappeared just as quickly. The Alliance hadn't even had any evidence that the other four Gundams (aside from 01, which was shot down during entry) even existed - they only knew that someone was destroying their bases so completely that there were never any survivors to report what had happened.   
  
Julia felt a slight shiver run down her spine. It was frightening to think of an enemy like that, almost insubstantial except in the damage they did. The Oz pilots who faced them... that had to be the ultimate nightmare for them! And the Gundam pilots apparently were that good, it wasn't just the Gundams (which were several steps beyond everyone else's capabilities as it was), the way she'd originally thought. She'd glanced over a couple of the battles that happened to be caught on tape, and it was obvious even to her inexperienced eye that not only were the Gundams vastly superior to the mobile suits they were fighting against, but the pilots in them were also better than the pilots in the regular suits - much better. The differences between them and the regular pilots were almost as pronounced as those between the Gundams and regular suits.  
  
Julia closed her eyes, replaying one particular short battle involving Gundam 02 and a dozen or so Taurus'. It was only about a minute and a half of footage, because that was all the suit taking the pictures could broadcast before 02 got to him. It was difficult, knowing that she was able to do this research because someone had died, but she did her best to push it out of her mind. It was funny, sort of, she felt like she could almost see the tactics the Gundam pilot was using, and a few times she actually knew what he was going to do an instant before he did it. The patterns she saw seemed somewhat familiar, which was patently ridiculous.   
  
Actually, maybe it wasn't - mobile suits were made to approximate the human form, so once they exhausted their artillery (or once the Gundam got in too close for the mobile suits to use their artillery without risking either hitting one of their fellows or being caught up in the explosion), they started 'hand to hand' combat, which closely resembled normal fighting. Julia knew enough about fighting that it wasn't entirely surprising that it would look familiar, it was just that she couldn't identify it. All she knew was that it looked familiar, which was frustrating.  
  
But it seemed very odd that she would so easily see the tactics of the Gundam, when all she'd done was glance at their battles a few times. During the war, Oz and the Alliance devoted dozens, hundreds of people to studying the Gundams, their attacks, their advantages, in hopes that they'd be able to capitalize on whatever weaknesses they possessed. It was more than likely that her mind was just trying to put a familiar face on the fighting than that she actually saw something reliable in there. The few times she'd been able to anticipate the moves could be luck, or just a very common move that she'd seen before in the footage. She'd have to do a lot more research on what was taught to mobile suit pilots in terms of tactics before she could make any judgments.   
  
Before she realized it, the black Gundam with that strange sickle-shaped weapon was flying towards her (or so it appeared in her memory of the recording she'd seen), and there was that final, horrible scream before she jolted out of the memory, her eyes flying open.   
  
How could anyone do something like that to another human?  
  
Julia found that she was panting slightly, and took several deep breaths to calm herself. What sort of question was that? How could there be wars at all? How could the Alliance do what it had done to the colonies? She might as well ask how Cain had killed his brother. It was an endless cycle, violence begat violence. The Gundams were created in response to what was done to the colonies, which was probably in response to what was happening on Earth, which was in response to... who knew, after a while? What she wanted to know was why the Gundam pilots had done it. How could wait for a philosophy discussion with one of her fathers.  
  
Julia quieted as she realized what she had just thought. Why the Gundam pilots did it. That's what it came down to, eventually. She might have said that she was going to focus on the world as it was when the Gundam pilots appeared, that she was going to leave them as a fairly peripheral part of her project because of the lack of information, but the Gundam pilots had always been her interest. What in the world (or off it) could drive people to do what they'd done?  
  
I could try to find out. Julia stared at the paper in front of her and discovered that she'd unconsciously been doodling little Gundams. Little 01's and 02's, as a matter of fact. Her ability to draft pictures from her mind was as phenomenal as the rest of her mental abilities, although she had few creative impulses. It seemed stupid to draw stuff that she'd never seen, and she felt bad about flaunting her skills in front of true artists, especially when she hadn't worked for the ability at all.  
  
There wasn't any way that she could do what she wanted to, was there? It would make for a fascinating project, trying to get into the heads of the pilots. For her final presentation, she could do a sort of fake interview, ask the questions and see if she could figure out how they would have responded. It could be fascinating. It could be absolutely ridiculous.   
  
Julia had always had a gift for getting into other people's minds with very little information, understanding why they reacted the way they did, based on how they presented themselves, word choice, their eyes, even their body language. She usually could tell quite a bit about a person within a few minutes of meeting them. That was how she'd picked up what she had about her fathers being from the colonies. But could she possibly do that for people whose faces were never seen? Could she do that from what she knew about the colonies, their targets, and the combat footage she had?  
  
There were too many holes in the story right now, she needed to fill some of them in before she could know if this would work, but in the meantime... There was battle footage out there, very little from the earlier battles but more, a lot more, from later in the war, including the final battle. She hadn't looked at it yet because she didn't feel like she knew enough about it, but she'd change that. She knew of a half-dozen legitimate resources she could look through to find out what tactics were taught mobile suit pilots as a beginning, and if that wasn't enough, she could start looking in other places. She might even ask Wufei, he worked for the Preventers, who were (supposedly) the only group that owned any mobile suits any more. Who knew, he might even know something about piloting one.  
  
Julia quickly scooped all of her papers, including the doodles, and crammed them into her bag as the bell signaling the end of the period rang. Her mind was already occupied, replaying the battle scenes she'd viewed and reviewing what little she knew about mobile suit fighting in general. At least she had something to work on now.  
  
  
------------  
  
  
At the beginning of the last period of school, Julia got a note from Mrs. Kinley, saying that her teacher had arranged a meeting for her with one of the veterans of the war. Since Julia wasn't quite ready to declare open war between herself and her advisor (although there was a part of her that wished she could, just out of pure stubbornness), and because she really was interested in a first-hand account, she headed for the address immediately after school. She ought to have enough time to talk to the man for a couple of hours, and still make it to aikido on time.   
  
It only took her about fifteen minutes to walk the couple of miles to the address, but when she saw the building, she hesitated. I probably should have expected this, she thought, irritated with Mrs. Kinley's obvious attempt to 'subtly' affect her view of the pilots, and even more irritated with herself for not expecting it in the first place. All Mrs. Kinley had given her was an address, so it was something of a shock when she ended up standing in front of a sign by the side of the road proclaiming the building to be a home for wounded soldiers.   
  
She'd heard about these places before. The war killed a lot of people, but worse in some ways, it also left a lot of men crippled, sometimes so badly that it was impossible for them to function normally or even take care of themselves. The lucky ones had families to help them. The unlucky ones, or the ones whose families' couldn't be bothered taking care of them, ended up in facilities like this. It was something like a nursing home, only most of the inhabitants were much younger and often in need of a lot more aid.   
  
Julia had never personally been to one, and she wasn't sure what it would be like, but it was practically guaranteed that whoever she talked to would have a number of old scars, and be very bitter about the Gundam pilots. She sighed. That wasn't exactly what she was looking for, but she couldn't exactly leave now, and she was still interested. Besides, she couldn't really blame Mrs. Kinley or whoever she was going to talk to for feeling that way; if she'd lost family or a future because of the war, she'd probably feel that way, too.  
  
Julia walked up the long path to the building and in the front door. It was a pretty place, just very... isolated. It felt almost as if time stopped as soon as you entered the property, and in one sense, it was partially true. A nice woman at the desk in the foyer asked her what her business was, and she gave her the name that Mrs. Kinley had given her. The woman asked her to take a seat and then picked up a phone. Julia waited patiently for several minutes, then glanced up as she heard a footstep on the carpet behind her.   
  
She turned slightly in her seat, and saw a man in his early forties with dark glasses and a cane walk through the door. He turned his head towards the receptionist, who immediately said, "She's sitting in the chair immediately to your right."  
  
He's blind, Julia realized as she stood up. He turned to face her, a slightly questioning look on his face. "Miss Yuy-Maxwell?" he asked, and Julia realized that she still hadn't said anything.  
  
"Oh, yes! I... I'm sorry, I just..."  
  
"You were expecting to see a grizzled old war veteran?" he asked with a hint of a smile, and held out his hand. "Richard Louis."  
  
"Julia," she replied, taking his hand and shaking it. "And yes, a little. I'm sorry," she apologized.  
  
He shrugged slightly. "That's all right, I'm sorry for disappointing you," he said with a bigger smile.   
  
Julia blushed slightly and found herself smiling as well. "No, I'm not disappointed. Pleasantly surprised, probably. Thank you for taking the time to see me." She mentally winced. Sure, use the word 'see' around a blind person. Real good.  
  
"My pleasure. It's a nice change from the boring routine, at least," he said.   
  
"Routine?" Julia asked, not sure if she was being polite or absolutely rude. Mr. Louis was utterly different than what she'd expected, and she wasn't sure exactly what to say or do. She had the distinct impression that Mrs. Kinley had never actually met Mr. Louis, or she wouldn't have sent Julia to meet him.  
  
"You know, get up, eat, work, that sort of thing," he responded absently.  
  
Julia blinked, then she carefully asked, "What sort of work do you do?"  
  
"I'm a computer programmer, I work on commission for a local company, that way I don't have to deal with the commute. The home also pays me to help any newcomers adjust, if they need it," he added with a slight shrug.   
  
Julia stared at him for a second without speaking. She wanted very badly to ask him why, if he was obviously financially independent and capable of taking care of himself, as it seemed from what little she'd seen of him, why he was living here. She really wanted to ask him that, but couldn't think of anything that wouldn't be unbearably rude, even by her standards. "Oh," she finally managed. "Um, how long have you been working there?"  
  
"About ten years now," he responded, then turned his head towards the receptionist when she cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, Mary," he said, then gestured through the door with his cane. "We really shouldn't be clogging up the entrance like this," he commented. "Do you have any preferences as to where we talk?"  
  
"Ah, no, not really."  
  
"How about outside?"  
  
"Outside?" she asked, then winced at how ridiculous the question sounded. Did she honestly think that he never went outside just because he couldn't see? Julia hadn't felt like this much of an idiot in a long while, and wondered if her Duo-daddy's tendency to shove his foot in his mouth was something you inherited through genetics or a learned behavior. If it was the latter she was in trouble.  
  
"Yup. It's a beautiful day, and it's quieter. If that's not a problem," he quickly added.  
  
"No, that's fine."  
  
He turned and lead her through several corridors, finally pushing open a door and stepping out into the bright sunshine. Julia noticed that he didn't use the cane at all through out the whole journey, but she caught him putting out one hand to check for the hallways when they needed to turn, and suddenly realized what he was doing. He had the hallways here, probably the entire building, memorized, so he didn't need to feel his way around. She also better understood the comment about not having to deal with the commute, he could have been in serious trouble if he got off at a wrong stop on the bus.  
  
Once outside, he started gently tapping the cane on the ground in front of him, but didn't display any signs of hesitation as he lead her down a gravel path, finally stopping at a small gazebo with several chairs and a small table inside.   
  
"Oh, this is beautiful," Julia said without thinking, then winced, wondering if he'd be hurt by the statement.  
  
"I bet," he said, quietly feeling his way to a seat. "Describe it for me?"  
  
Julia blinked. "You want me to..."  
  
"Well, I can't see it," he said, gesturing to the glasses with his cane, a wry smile on his lips. Julia looked at him and something suddenly snapped into place in her mind. He was trying to break every possibly stereotype she might have had of disabled people, to get her to look at him like a person. And he was having some fun doing it, knowing how uncomfortable she was.   
  
Julia had a stubborn streak as wide as a barn. Call it a personality flaw, but now her lips pressed together until they were a thin line as she fought to keep her emotions out of her voice. She'd never met anyone with any major disabilities before, and she hadn't known that she was coming to a home for wounded veterans when she set out this afternoon from school. There was no way that she could have known how to act. This might be one way to handle the problem and make her more comfortable, but it wasn't the best way. Like I'm one who should talk about that.  
  
In the back of her mind, she admired how well he'd managed to break through the stereotype of 'poor old wounded soldier', but most of her attention was focused on how irritated she was right now. Fine, he wanted play? She could do that.  
  
"It is beautiful," she said, quickly organizing her thoughts. "You know that the chairs, table, and gazebo are white?" her voice sounded just the way it had a few seconds earlier, a fact for which she was very proud. At his nod, she continued, "Well, the sun is shining down through the leaves of the trees, and you can actually see them in the air. The sky is completely blue, what of it you can see, and a few of the leaves are just beginning to turn red around the edges."  
  
Mr. Louis now had an odd look on his face, peaceful, almost longing, but with a hint of a frown around the corners of his mouth. So she had him confused by how easily she was talking to him. Good. It was no more than he deserved, for leading her on like that. She decided that this ridiculousness had gone on long enough. "And behind you, there's this odd tree with bright neon pink leaves," she continued, raising her voice slightly. She saw his mouth drop open and outright suspicion on his face a second before she finished, "And there's a purple elephant sitting on the lowest branch, and he's waving at me."  
  
She outright shock on his face now, and settled back to wait for the outrage. This wouldn't be the first time her tongue had gotten her in trouble, and it probably wouldn't be the last, although she had gotten slightly better at holding it in the last few years. Well, this just blew that record to hell. The casual relationship she shared with her fathers didn't help in this case, with them, she was free to express herself honestly, no matter if it was something that they didn't want to hear or not. There was a fair amount of teasing, especially between herself and Duo-daddy, that seemed perfectly natural, but when she acted that same way around other adults, they tended to act as if she'd done something wrong. It didn't take her too long to figure out that most adults weren't comfortable with children who were just as intelligent and confident as they were, who were used to being treated as equals, the way she was. Most of the time, nowadays, she managed to act 'properly' in public, but every now and then her mouth got the best of her.  
  
Then, to her surprise, he burst out laughing. "I guess I deserved that, didn't I?" he asked rhetorically.  
  
"Probably not," Julia admitted after a moment's thought. "I probably overacted. Sorry."  
  
"No need to apologize, I did push you a little. I thought that you were one of those who was going to tiptoe around me like I was going to break. I didn't realize you'd met someone like me before."  
  
Well, she hadn't, but that wasn't really important. The point was that he wasn't going to break, and he'd managed to get that across quite well. "There isn't a purple elephant," she offered. "But one of the trees is this amazing bright orange, almost neon pink."  
  
"I do wish I could see it, but I can see it pretty well in my mind," he said, his tone slightly regretful. "Thank you."  
  
"You're welcome. Thanks for talking to me."  
  
"Like I said before, it's no problem. Do you have anywhere you want to start in particular?"  
  
Julia thought quickly. "If I ever go somewhere that you don't want to talk about, just say so, and I'll drop it," she said hesitantly. After the reactions she'd gotten from Mrs. Kinley and her parents, she wasn't anxious to upset anyone else.  
  
"Well, I can't promise that I won't curse at you a little if you hit anything sensitive, but I won't hold it against you. At least, not for long," he said cheerfully, momentarily reminding her of her Daddy.  
  
"That's fine," she said with a grin. "Um, first of all... What happened to your eyes, and why are you here?"  
  
"Don't pull your blows, do you?" he asked rhetorically, then held up his hands. "No, no, that's OK. I did volunteer for this job. My eyes... well, that's simple. The consul I was monitoring during a Gundam attack blew up in my face. I'm told that I was quite lucky, actually, it could have taken off my head."   
  
"So you weren't a mobile suit pilot?"  
  
"No! I wasn't nearly talented enough for that!" he said with a slight snort. "Never really wanted to be one, either. I was in computer programming, same as now, only then it was for targeting systems instead of making up games for kids to play, to help them learn to read. That's what I do now, by the way.   
  
"When I tell it that way, that seems a little boring, doesn't it? It really is that boring, though. I joined the Academy when I was sixteen, graduated when I turned twenty one, and I barely had a year's worth of experience when the Gundams showed up. I got drafted to help fix a computer that had gone haywire, and I'd just finished when the Gundam showed up. I took over the station when we found out that he'd blown up the barracks where the person who was supposed to be there lived. I took a few recordings, gave a few orders, and then the damn thing exploded. Some sort of feedback, I don't know, I'm no electrician." He shrugged philosophically. "I do remember that the thing I was most irritated about when I woke up was that they'd ruined all my hard work. That was before I found out that I was blind.  
  
"And how I ended up here? Well, during most of the war I got handed around from one military instillation to another. Not much a blind man could do during that time, or so I thought. Basically it was about six months of me feeling sorry for myself," he commented analytically. "Then, before I knew it, the war was over, and I didn't have anywhere to go. I was born really late to my parents, and they died before I got out of the Academy, and there wasn't anyone else. Then places like this started popping up, and I got shipped off to one of them. I don't have to pay anything, the government takes care of it, and apparently that was supposed to be enough." He snorted again. "Let me tell you, boredom does weird things to the mind. I spent the first five years or so moping around feeling sorry for myself. One of the nurses finally shocked me out of it... well, it doesn't really matter how she did it, but it did the trick. I went out, got a job, and eventually I figured out that just because I couldn't see didn't mean it was the end of the world. A couple of years ago the director of this place asked me if I'd become a counselor officially, help some people here, because I'd adjusted so well." He laughed for a moment, and it was clear that he saw the irony in it. "Just some evidence that anyone can turn themselves around." He turned his head towards her. "Does that answer your question?"  
  
"Yes. Thank you," she said seriously, impressed. He... she couldn't think of who he reminded her of, but it wasn't everyone that could take an experience like that and grow beyond it.   
  
"So what else did you want to hear about?" he asked with slightly forced cheerfulness.  
  
  
------------  
  
  
Julia talked to him for several hours, and by the time she left, she had to run in order to get to aikido on time. She had asked him about the time period, about what he knew about the colonies (it was almost nothing), why he'd joined the Academy (he hadn't had the money to go to college, and knew that he could get a good education and training working for the Alliance), and a number of other questions about the world when he was her age. It was very strange, he was only a few years older than her parents, if they'd been born a few years later, they might have been in the war, too. The thought was frightening, that they might have ended up like Mr. Louis, or worse, dead.  
  
Besides all of the planned topics, they'd also spoken quite a bit about him getting over the war, what it was like to be trained to kill, even if he'd never done it (a fact for which, he confessed, he was very grateful), and especially what the Alliance used to tell their soldiers in order to get them to kill, to die for them, something Julia had never considered.   
  
She pushed all of these thoughts to the back of her mind as she walked through the door to the dojo, trying to empty her mind of all outside considerations. Sometimes she wondered if her parents had known what this would mean to her, these quiet hours several times a week. She smiled slightly, most people would not consider time when you were learning how to fight 'quiet' time, but she wasn't talking about her body. It was her mind that was quiet during this time, and she needed that, very badly. Sometimes she thought that she might have gone crazy without the calm that these lessons gave her.  
  
Julia automatically turned her attention to the ceiling, listening for the soft sound of footsteps on the floor overhead. When she didn't hear anything, she turned her head to the room at the back of the dojo, where her sensei sometimes worked before classes. No footsteps there either, and she couldn't hear any breathing. She bowed as she entered the dojo, then looked at John, the senior student. "Where's sensei?"  
  
He gave her an odd look. "Some day I'm going to figure out how you do that," he commented with a smile, then answered her question. "He got stuck in a traffic jam, he isn't going to be able to make it tonight. Feel up to being uke tonight?" he asked with a grin.  
  
"Always," she responded with a smile of her own. "Just let me get changed." John had been teasing her for years about her 'mystical powers'. Just because she was observant didn't make her a psychic. At first she'd tried to explain this to him, but all that had ended up happening was her getting flustered. Eventually she learned to tease him back, which helped, but he never gave up on the mystical powers explanation.   
  
Julia quickly changed into her gi and headed back upstairs. Despite everything, she'd still managed to reach the dojo before most of the rest of the class, so the mat was pretty empty. She stepped onto the mat, dropped to her knees and bowed respectfully, then stood up and looked at John respectfully. "What did you have him mind?"  
  
"Attack me, cross-hand grab. I had this idea, and I think there's a way out of it, but I need to see it first."  
  
Julia helpfully grabbed his wrist, and allowed herself to be spun around and forced to her knees. Once he was there, however, he paused. "You OK?"  
  
"Yeah, I'm fine." The position might look painful, but Julia was pretty flexible, and she'd been training for most of her life, so she knew where to go when she was thrown. "You planning on doing anything with this, or just leaving it there?" she asked, glancing over her shoulder at her arm extended up behind her.  
  
"I'm trying to remember what it was I'm supposed to do. Or what you're supposed to do, actually."  
  
"To get out of this?"   
  
"Mm-hm."  
  
Julia reacted without thinking, twisting slightly in his grip and feeling along his wrist for a particular point... she found it and pushed. He let out a cry of pain and let go of her wrist long enough for her to twist free - she dove forward into a roll, latching onto *his* wrist and using the move that Tousan had taught her a few weeks earlier, threw him away from her as she rolled to her feet.   
  
John wasn't the senior student for nothing, he rolled automatically as she threw him and came up facing her, but he wore a grimace of pain on his face and was rubbing one wrist with his hand. "Ouch," he said mildly.   
  
"Oh, I'm sorry!" she exclaimed, looking at the way he was holding his hand. It looked like it was just hanging there. Sensei had demonstrated a few pressure points on her before, so she knew approximately what he was going through.  
  
"That wasn't exactly what I had in mind," he said dryly, shaking his hand, obviously trying to get some feeling back into the extremity.   
  
"I'm sorry," she repeated, aware that everyone was staring at them.  
  
"It's all right, I'll be fine," he told her. "And it did work. Where the heck did you learn that?"  
  
"I... I'm not sure. The last part my Tousan taught me a few weeks ago, but I don't remember..." Julia trailed off as something distant surfaced in her mind. "I... I could figure it out, but it's going to take some time." She blinked several times to keep her mind rooted in the present, and felt a strong hint of resentment. This was supposed to be her time when her mind was quiet and not bothering her! This had happened to her before, so she recognized the signs, which was why she knew it would take a long time to summon up the memory.  
  
She knew it was a fact that people never really forgot anything they'd ever seen, heard, or experienced. It wasn't that they remembered everything, but it was all there, somewhere, tucked away in their brains. Not for her, when she remembered everything, she really remembered it. Weird things from when she was a baby (a real baby) floated up into her conscious mind at the oddest times. If she concentrated, she could usually find the entire thing in a couple of hours, but she rarely bothered. Who really wanted to remember laying in a crib staring at shiny objects? The novelty of remembering the way she thought when she was that young wore off pretty quickly, and anyway, she always had a headache after she finished.  
  
The nerve pinch she'd just used, she could have seen or been taught it at any point in the last ten years, and she really didn't feel like practically going into a trance for the next several hours to figure out where and when.  
  
John was giving her a strange look. "Are you all right?"  
  
Julia pushed her irritation aside. "I'm fine. Look, I'll figure out where I learned it later, OK? I think it was in a book or something, I'll go look it up when I get home." That was a lie, she had the distinct impression that one of her fathers was involved, but that would have required more of an explanation, and she didn't talk to people (outside of her parents) about her mind anymore. She didn't like the way they looked at her when they found out how weird her mind was. She'd had enough of that to last a lifetime when they first figured out that she was a genius.  
  
He shook his head slightly, denying that he wanted anything from her at all. Even though she knew that he was still curious, she relaxed slightly when she saw his attempt at making her feel better. "It's ok, Julie, whatever you want is ok, all right?" Julia nodded uncomfortably, then glanced at the clock and saw that it was almost time for the class to start. She nodded almost imperceptibly at the clock and saw John's eyes fix on it. Without waiting for him to respond, she walked to the middle of the mat and sank down to her knees, sitting on her heels. After so many years of practice, she barely even noticed that sitting in that position for long periods of time could be rather painful.  
  
As John clapped his hands to signal the beginning of the class, and walked to the front of the mat, Julia firmly pressed all of the odd memory out of her mind. She wasn't going to think right now.  
  
  
------------  
  
  
"Something's bothering her," Duo murmured to Heero that night, as they were getting ready for bed. Duo paused in his preparations for a moment to admire his koi's body. Fifteen years had done nothing to diminish Heero's attraction, nor had it eroded his figure in the least. Duo found himself eyeing the little patch of Heero's stomach just above his bellybutton speculatively, and shook his head slightly, trying to focus, at least for now. But later... just because you were older than thirty didn't mean you were dead, did it?  
  
"Hn."  
  
"Any idea what it was?"  
  
Heero shook his head as he headed to the bathroom to brush his teeth, and Duo sighed. It would be at least ten minutes before his husband returned, and at this rate his teeth would remain perfect for dozens of years after he died. Duo's teeth, on the other hand, were likely to start rotting away any day now, when all the sweets he ate caught up with him.  
  
Julia had been quiet during dinner. She mentioned that she'd had a new idea of how she was going to approach the 'Gundam project', as he'd begun to think of her delving into their history, but probably sensing that the topic disturbed them, no matter how much they tried to hide it. Then she'd related a little of her meeting with the war veteran, who'd been blinded in a Gundam attack. She either didn't know which Gundam it had been, or hadn't told them, the former being much more likely. Why should she care which one of them it had been?  
  
He knew that he'd come perilously close to giving himself away with his reaction when she mentioned that the nice young man she'd met had been blinded by a Gundam attack. And he wasn't even a combat soldier, just a technician who'd never killed anyone, who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He pushed away the regret to the back of his mind, the same way he had for longer than he wanted to think about. They'd all done things in the war that still made him sick to think about now, but letting it bother him wouldn't help or fix anything.  
  
Heero came walking back into the room. "Are you all right?" he asked, tilting his head slightly.  
  
"I'll be fine, it's not me I'm worried about. How about you?" Duo asked.  
  
Heero shrugged slightly and walked over to put his arms around Duo. "Une called today, she wants me to take a mission," he murmured.  
  
Duo stiffened involuntarily. "Not active?!" he demanded. You would think that after all this time she would have given up. They'd both been taking occasional missions for the Preventers when they found out what the scientists had been up to, but shortly after they got Julia, they gave up doing those missions. Permanently. The missions were dangerous, and while Duo hadn't planned on getting himself killed any time soon, he wasn't going to risk it. Not when it wasn't just himself and Heero at risk. They weren't going to let their daughter grow up an orphan. Une had accepted the decision with ill grace, especially when Quatre and Trowa had also announced that they weren't going to be taking any missions at the same time, and when Wufei had followed suit a few years later, when his first child was born. It can't have been easy for her to see five of her best operatives suddenly retire themselves from active duty, but after fifteen years, you would have thought she would have given up.  
  
"Iie. It's just a computer job. They need some information on a group that's trying to build mobile suits."  
  
Duo shook his head. Sometimes the idiocy of people astounded him. They finally had peace, and what did those fuck-ups want to do but screw it up again? Fifteen years of trying to watch his tongue around his daughter had failed to cure him of the habit of cursing, either. He just cursed in private, now.   
  
"Well, then, if it's just a computer job..." Duo sighed and kissed Heero, then pulled him towards the bed.  
  
"Do you think we should tell her?" The words froze him where he stood.   
  
After several seconds his brain unfroze just enough for him to start talking (big surprise there), although he couldn't quite think yet. "I don't know. Do you think so?"   
  
"She'd going to be angry when she finds out."   
  
"Yeah, I know. But I don't really want to tell her. I don't think I could, not just outright. You?"  
  
"Iie."  
  
Duo bit his lip. "But we are going to have to tell her something, eventually, even if she figures it out on her own, she going to have questions."  
  
He could practically feel Heero's intense concentration, and held back a groan. Great, I've given him another mission. I'll be lucky if I get three words out of him in the next week. But Heero surprised him by pulling him the rest of the way to the bed with gentle hands - he was usually too preoccupied after being given a mission to pay attention to details like that.   
  
"I'll work on it," Heero said shortly, before drawing the covers over both of them and turning off the lights.  
  
  
  
  
  
Well, this section turned out completely differently than I expected. Richard Louis was supposed to be a total throwaway character (and probably resemble the sort of stereotype he ended up mocking) but then he went and became an actual character on me. I'm not sure what role he's going to play in the rest of the story (if any), but he does provide an interesting perspective on the whole situation.   
  
As a note, I happen to have several friends who are either blind or handicapped, and it is from their attitudes that I created Richard's. Yes, it sucks beyond belief to have something like that happen to you, probably more than I can ever imagine, being a reasonably healthy person. But it isn't the end of the world, nor do people's lives end just because they can't see, or are short a leg. One friend does make a joke out of the fact that she can't see, and gets extremely irritated when people get sensitive about using words like 'see' or 'sight' around her.  
  
Anyway, sorry for yet another extremely long and (this time) preachy author's note. I am having a great time writing this story, it's turning out to be one of the more interesting things I've ever written.   
Marika 10/11/01  



	5. Part 5

It had been less than a month since Julia had decided upon her new approach, and the progress she'd made both delighted and frightened her. Delighted, because she'd come so far in such a short time, and frightened, because of how easy it was becoming for her to get into the mindset of the terrorists. It shouldn't be this easy, and she wasn't sure she liked the things she thought when she tried to *become* them, but she could understand where these thoughts were coming from, and maybe that was the most frightening thing of all.   
  
The Gundam pilots were not madmen, or even crazed. Fanatics, certainly, and driven far beyond what most would consider sane, but they were not insane. There had been reasons, good reasons, for their actions, as she had suspected all along. And every time she tried to immerse herself in their imaginary personalities, she found it easier and easier to understand how they could become what they'd been.   
  
She'd started with the assumption that there must have been *something* in each of their lives that would lead them to this, their upbringing, a traumatic shock, religion conviction, something... Assuming that they were, well, not balanced, but not so unbalanced that they would draw attention. She had a hard time picturing anyone handing a Gundam over to someone who was openly... um, disturbed. So she was assuming that they had to be, not normal, but not...   
  
"Gundam pilot," she said aloud, ignoring the strange looks that people were giving her. That was the only word for it. Before they weren't, and then something happened, and then they were Gundam pilots. That was a definition in itself, at least in her mind, of which 'incredibly driven' was only a small part.   
  
So they started out... relatively normal, and then something happened, and they became Gundam pilots. After a few days of intense concentration (and an entire weekend devoted completely to study), she had a vague idea on what sort of training the pilots must have received, in order to do what they'd done, and a very specific idea of the sort of training that normal mobile suit pilots got.   
  
It had come as a surprise to her, how easily she absorbed the information she found about mobile suit combat. Tactics, schematics, history, strengths, weaknesses, she blazed through every book she found and filed the information away with an ease that frightened her. Even for her, this sort of retention was excessive. She didn't understand why this should come so easily to her. True, most things came easily to her, and she was used to that, but not like this. It just... it all fit together, like she was fitting together the pieces of a puzzle she didn't even realize she had.   
  
Her initial impressions of the Gundams' fighting abilities had been correct, and she wasn't sure how she felt about that. The Gundam pilots weren't just better than the regular mobile suit pilots, they were better by several degrees of magnitude. They were so much better that it almost wasn't worth comparing. As she had said before, the differences were as pronounced as those between the Gundams and normal mobile suits. And she had seen it in just a few seconds of battle, before she'd known anything about their tactics, their abilities, before she'd known anything about mobile suits at all. It just wasn't... it wasn't right.   
  
Julia noticed that her heart beat was speeding up again when she heard it thundering in her ears, and when the rustle of paper grated against her eardrums, she realized that she was as close as she'd come to losing control as she'd been in a long, long time. She abruptly stood up, managing to catch the chair she almost knocked over before it could fall on the floor and deafen her, and blushed at the looks she was getting from the other people in the library. "S... sorry!" she stammered, and stumbled out of the library, her hands pressed over her ears.   
  
Maybe it was her imagination, but it seemed like it was getting harder and harder to shut out the sounds. It took her nearly five minutes until she was back to normal, and another five before she splashed some water on her face and exited the bathroom. She went back to the library and sat down heavily at the desk she'd vacated ten minutes ago.   
  
She was beginning to really understand why the pilots had done what they had. Did that make her a bad person, or were the pilots just really misjudged? Or was it something else?   
  
Up until a few weeks ago, Julia would have gone to her parents with all of this. She didn't have any really close friends her own age, even John was over five years older than her, and she wasn't really comfortable talking to him about serious topics. For as long as she could remember, her fathers had been her best friends and confidants. She was aware that this was not... well, normal. She didn't have a problem with it, never had, but now...   
  
She couldn't talk about the Gundam pilots with them. Not when Duo-daddy had woken her up three more nights when he cried out in his sleep. She hadn't listened in on any more of their conversations, but she knew that somehow, she was to blame for his nightmares. She wouldn't do that to him, couldn't do that to him. Julia didn't want to upset either one of them any more than she already had, so she wouldn't discuss it with them, but she needed to talk to *somebody*.   
  
Maybe she could talk to Richard. She'd met with him several times in the last month, and by the last time, she'd figured out that she was meeting with him for some reason other than just her project. She'd gotten all the information she needed by the third meeting, now she just liked talking to him. He had an interesting view on life, remarkably cheerful despite everything that had happened to him. He also didn't have many friends outside of his work and his home, and appreciated their talks a lot more than he'd ever tell her. Julia didn't feel sorry for him, exactly, but she thought it was a shame that he had so few friends because he happened to be blind, and she was considering inviting him over to dinner sometime. Duo-daddy would appreciate his sense of humor, at least.   
  
But... she'd never talked to anyone about what she could do, what she was. She talked about it with her parents, but they already knew, so it wasn't like she actually had to tell them. She didn't know if she could do it. She needed to talk to someone though, and he was the only one who came to mind.   
  
The bell rang, and Julia shoved her books into her backpack, bouncing it up and down a couple of times to settle the books and papers, then slung it over her shoulder, a note from her Daddy clutched in one hand. He'd written it this morning, then somehow sneaked it into her bag while she wasn't paying attention. He could be remarkably tricky that way, she hadn't let it out of her sight at all, and he'd still managed to plant, not only the note, but a candy in her lunch bag, which had been in her school bag. She still wasn't quite sure how he'd managed that one.   
  
She had a doctor appointment today, just a regular checkup, but Daddy wanted to make sure that she didn't forget it. As if she ever forgot anything. Julia snorted mentally at the possibility. She'd managed to track down that move she'd used on John to something that her Duo-daddy had shown her when she was about seven. He'd told her that if anyone ever tried to hurt her, really hurt her, she should push that particular spot to make them let go, and then run. Of course, with the training she'd received, she automatically turned that into a slightly more legitimate move. And all she got for her trouble was a massive headache and the question of where her Daddy had learned it in the first place.   
  
What sort of place taught you the quickest and most efficient way to hurt a person, to cause the most pain with the least effort?   
  
  
-----------   
  
  
Unlike most doctor's offices' that she'd heard of, Julia's almost always ran on time. She'd barely signed in when a nurse came in to escort her to an examination room, where she changed into a flimsy paper gown that barely covered the essentials, to sit by herself in a room that was just a few degrees too cold for comfort, until the doctor arrived.   
  
She looked up as the door slid open and the doctor stepped through, dressed in a white coat, but there was no mistaking the two golden braids that hung over her shoulders. Julia flung herself at the doctor and gave her a big hug. "Sally! Or should I call you Dr. Chang while I'm here?"   
  
"Sally is fine, but I'm going to need to breathe sometime soon!" Sally replied with a laugh. Julia released her, stepping back a few feet and smoothing out the wrinkles in her paper outfit.   
  
"How are you? How is Wufei? And the twins and everyone else?" Julia asked.   
  
"They're well, and they can't wait to see you. You are coming to Quatre's, aren't you?" Sally asked.   
  
"Oh, yeah. I can't wait. No school, get to see the family, not a bad deal."   
  
"Not bad at all," Sally said with a laugh. "And how have you been?"   
  
Julia hesitated for several seconds, wondering if she should tell Sally what had been going on, with her hearing and her sight, but decided against it. It didn't bother her that much, not yet. It was probably just because she was so worked up about the Gundam pilots, that she was losing control. She used to have this problem, when she was younger, before she learned to concentrate probably. It would probably just go away with time. "Fine. I... I'm working on my senior project."   
  
Sally hesitated, and Julia thought she saw a hint of worry flash across her face. Did everyone in her parents' generation react this way, or just all the adults she knew? "Oh, yes, your parents mentioned it to me, the Gundam pilots, right? Find anything interesting?" Sally asked, turning her back to Julia, probably trying to hide the reaction that Julia had already noticed.   
  
Julia shrugged, not wanting to upset anyone else. "It's interesting stuff, but you probably know all about it, you lived through it. So, what first, ears, eyes, or do you want me to cough for you?"   
  
"Why don't we start with the eyes?" Sally suggested with a smile. "Now, you know the drill. Just stare straight ahead, look at the light."   
  
Julia obediently stared straight ahead, as Sally took a small device with a light on it and lifted it up. She started to point it at her eyes...   
  
"Ow!" Julia abruptly turned her head away from the blinding light and attempted to shield her eyes with a hand. "What have you got it set for, small sun?" she demanded of Sally, who had hurriedly covered the light with her own hand, and now shut it off, slipping it into her pocket.   
  
"I'm sorry, Julia!" Sally exclaimed. "Someone must have been playing with this! I'll find out who did it..."   
  
"It's OK," Julia replied, rubbing her eyes, trying to restore her vision. "I'll be fine. Just no more lights, OK?"   
  
"No more lights," Sally quickly agreed. "Let me just take some blood first, and then I'll do the rest of the standard tests, and you can go home."   
  
"Fine," Julia replied with what grace she could muster, after almost being blinded. She held out her finger, and managed not to wince as Sally took the necessary sample of blood. Julia held a swab of cotton to her finger for the few minutes Sally was gone as she took the samples to wherever it was they had to go to be analyzed, and entertained herself by looking at the posters covering the walls. Then Sally returned, and walked over, taking hold of Julia's hand. She removed the cotton, asking, "Is it done?"   
  
Julia rubbed her thumb against her index finger, and examined the digit. It wasn't bleeding anymore, and the mark was almost invisible. "It's fine."   
  
"All right, then. You ready for the standard tests?" she asked with a smile that was half grimace.   
  
Julia sighed. "There's no way you can skip these and just say that I took them?"   
  
"Sorry, kiddo."   
  
"All right, let's get this over with."   
  
  
----------   
  
  
Sally quickly checked with the receptionist to make sure that her schedule for the rest of the afternoon was clear, then went to her office and closed the door. She sat at the desk and contemplated the screen in front of her for several seconds, mentally preparing herself. This was not going to be fun.   
  
She quickly dialed a number, and a few seconds later Heero's face appeared in the view screen. "Hello, Heero."   
  
"Is she still there?" he asked.   
  
"She just left."   
  
"One second, I'll connect us." He did something off-screen, and suddenly the screen split itself in two, and she was staring at two separate images. On the right, Heero Yuy sat studying her with the same intense glare he'd perfected years earlier. On the left, Duo Maxwell sat, leaning back in his chair, his arms stretched over his head, his stance deceptively relaxed. "Report."   
  
Sally resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "As far as I can tell, the enhancements are still progressing, getting stronger."   
  
She'd been right about Duo - he abruptly leaned forward, eyes flashing. "I thought you said they'd stop when she hit puberty!" he said accusingly.   
  
"I said that I *thought* it *might* stop when she *finished* puberty, and she hasn't done that yet," she said coldly. "You know that she hit it late, probably because so much of her energy was going into the enhancements throughout her childhood. And I'm only guessing that the enhancements will stop progressing after puberty ends, I never said that it was guaranteed!" She saw Duo sit back, looking chagrined, and added in quieter tones, "To be frank, we should be grateful that she went through it at all. Remember what I told her when she was younger, that she might just keep growing? It looks like she will stop, eventually."   
  
She saw alarm flicker on Heero's face for a second before it was replaced by the usual mask, and Duo closed his eyes for several seconds, obviously getting control of himself. "You're right, Sally, as usual," Duo finally said. "And I shouldn't be taking this out on you. You've done so much for us, this isn't much of a way to say thanks. It's just that we're talking about Julia..."   
  
Sally briefly thought about how she would feel if it were one of her children who were going through what Julia was, and nodded her head. "I understand completely. However, we do have a problem now. As I said, the enhancements are progressing, and until they stop, she's going to have to keep adjusting."   
  
"What's going on with her, exactly?" Duo asked.   
  
"It's hard for me to say, exactly..."   
  
"Tell us what you know," Heero ordered softly.   
  
"Her eyesight is still becoming more sensitive, for one thing," Sally informed them. "She actually cried out... she said I nearly blinded her when I directed the light we normally use to test pupil dilation into her eyes. It was set on the lowest setting I could manage, so now there's no way for me to test that. All aspects of her sight, actually, have progressed beyond my ability to test, at least with the equipment I have here. It's the same with her hearing. The only reason I know that she still is changing is because last time, the light didn't hurt her eyes, and I did manage to reach the limits of her hearing, if just barely. There are no definitive tests that I can give her without raising her suspicions for so many of the things... But when I tested her for blood, the puncture healed itself in a minute or two, and she almost broke my back when she gave me a hug when I arrived. She's either getting stronger, or losing control, or both. I think it's both, when I asked her if everything was all right, she hesitated for a long time before she told me she was fine. I think something isn't right, but she won't tell me." Sally paused for a moment, then asked, "Has she said anything to either of you?"   
  
She saw the two of them glance at each other on the screens, and then Duo said, "She hasn't been talking to us as much as usual. I don't know..."   
  
"Why not?" she asked, surprised. They were as close to her daughter as anyone she'd ever seen, and she wasn't pleased to find out that Julia wasn't talking to them anymore. She didn't think Julia had any good friends, and if she was bottling things up inside of her...   
  
"It's because of her project," Duo said, running a hand through his hair. "It's occupying so much of her time, and she knows that it upsets us to talk about a it."   
  
"She does? How..."   
  
"You know how smart she is, and she'd have to be a complete idiot not to notice that something was wrong. So far she thinks its something about our generation and the war, but..."   
  
"So she doesn't know yet?"   
  
"No, not yet. We're still trying to figure out how to tell her."   
  
"Before or after she figures it out on her own?"   
  
"We don't know."   
  
Sally sighed again and did her best to push the matter out of her mind. They would do whatever they wanted, and if she really wanted to discuss it with them, she'd see them in a week. "All right. But that still doesn't deal with the issue of her enhancements. You're going to have to do something." She hesitated, then said, "If you want, I could give her some medicine..."   
  
"No drugs!" Duo practically shouted, and Sally barely restrained a wince. She'd mentioned, a long time ago, the possibility of giving Julia some drugs to dampen the effects of her overactive senses, to relax her muscles slightly so she wouldn't risk injuring someone unintentionally. Duo's reaction then had been substantially more violent than this one.   
  
Sally didn't know why Duo had such strong prejudices against any types of drugs, but she suspected that it dated back to his childhood, that he had some bad experience with them then that he carried with him now. Whatever the reason, he remained vehemently against them in any form; she was just grateful that to the best of her knowledge, Julia had never gotten sick, so she'd never required any sort of medication.   
  
"Well, you're going to have to do something," she repeated, slightly louder this time.   
  
Duo frowned. "She isn't controlling it?"   
  
"I don't think so, or if she is, not very well. The things you taught her when she was little... I don't think it's enough."   
  
Duo closed his eyes for several seconds, while Sally waited for a response. When Julia had been much younger and her abilities had first started to get out of hand, they'd taught her a series of concentration exercises, bordering on meditation, that taught her how to limit the amount of information going into her brain by filtering out extraneous information: to tone down her hearing, her extremely acute eyesight, and hopefully anything else she ran into that she hadn't told them about. So far it had worked, but there was only so much she could do without knowing what the real problem was. And the problem was getting steadily worse...   
  
"We'll think of something," Duo finally said, glancing at his husband.   
  
"Duo..."   
  
"Sally, I said that we'll handle it!" Duo said a little bit sharply.   
  
Sally hesitated for several seconds, then asked, "How?"   
  
"I don't know. We'll think of something. If we have to, we'll tell her." He closed his eyes again. "We were going to do it when she graduated, anyway."   
  
Sally's eyes widened. Julia was graduating in a little over four months. Somehow, when he'd said that they'd tell her eventually, she'd never pictured it being so soon. "But..."   
  
"After she graduates, who the hell knows what's going to happen? She might go to college, she might stay here for a while, but she sure as hell isn't going to be here for the rest of her life, and we're not letting her go without her knowing!"   
  
"I... understand."   
  
"Yeah. Thanks again, Sally. See you in a couple of days."   
  
"See you."   
  
Heero nodded once to her, then disconnected. Duo grinned at her, although it was a pale imitation of his normal expression, then also disconnected. Sally sat back in her seat, then winced a little as her back twinged in protest. Julia was getting stronger, and if she wasn't careful, she'd start ripping out door knobs when she was in a rush.   
  
After a few seconds, Sally turned to her computer, calling up some files she'd made over a decade ago. When it became obvious what had been done to the children, all of the pilots had allowed her to do some fairly extensive tests on them, to find out exactly what the limits of their abilities were, and to try to discover how they controlled them. Maybe there was something there that she could use to help Julia.   
  
  
------------   
  
  
After her doctor's appointment, Julia caught a bus to visit Richard. She probably could have walked the distance, but her eyes were still kinda sensitive from when Sally shined that light in her eyes, and she wanted to get away from the sun. Ten minutes later, she stepped out of the bus (still shielding her eyes), and quickly walked up to the main building. She let the receptionist know who she was, and sat down to wait for Richard. The waiting room was pleasantly dark, and Julia's headache started to fade a little.   
  
"Julia!" Julia looked up from where she was tearing little squares of paper into even littler squares of paper. I have got to find a better nervous habit, she thought, dumping the handful of confetti into a trashcan as she stood up.   
  
"Hiya," she replied. "How ya doing?"   
  
"Fine, other than the fact that I stubbed my toe on the main table in the common room," he replied. "Some idiot moved it and forgot to tell me."   
  
"That sucks."   
  
"You want to go out to the gazebo? It's cold, but it's not that bad."   
  
Julia winced. It had snowed recently, just a dusting, but going outside, in the bright sun with the snow reflecting it... just the thought hurt. "Um, can we stay inside today?"   
  
"What's wrong?" he asked, his brow creasing slightly. Normally she loved going outside, no matter what the weather.   
  
"I just had a doctor appointment today and when she was looking at my eyes, someone fiddled with the light, so it was way too bright, and my eyes are still a little sensitive." Julia decided not to mention that they'd been a little sensitive for days, and the thing with the light had just exacerbated the problem.   
  
"That's fine, we can go to one of the lounges." He started working his way through the halls. "You know, the lights they use to examine your eyes... you can't turn them up enough to hurt people," he commented slowly.   
  
Julia sighed. She really didn't want to talk about this - it would only give her a bigger headache. "They don't?"   
  
"No."   
  
"Well, maybe someone fiddled with this one. Nearly blinded me."   
  
"Hm." He pushed open a door to a tiny room with a couple of comfortable chairs in a circle around a low glass table. "Three chairs in a circle around a glass table, the one closest with it's back to the door?" he asked.   
  
"Yup."   
  
"Thanks, I've been a little paranoid about people moving things on me since this morning." He held the door open for her, then carefully closed it and moved to the nearest chair. She took the one on the right, sinking down into a comfortable seat with a sigh.   
  
"What's wrong?" he asked, setting his cane aside.   
  
"Why does something have to be wrong?" she asked avoiding the question without really lying. It wasn't nice to lie.   
  
He wasn't fooled. "Something's bothering you," he declared. "I've been watching you get more and more tense in the last few weeks, and I'm guessing this isn't a normal cycle you go through."   
  
"Watching?" she asked, hoping to distract him.   
  
"It's a figure of speech," he replied. "And you still didn't answer my question."   
  
"It's... a lot of things. But mostly it's my project," she confessed. This was why she'd come over here, wasn't it? It was stupid not to tell him once she'd made the decision to do so. Right?   
  
"What about your project?"   
  
"Well, remember how I said that it was about the time period surrounding the appearance of the Gundams? The war, the people, the politics... That wasn't exactly the entire truth."   
  
He frowned slightly. "It isn't?"   
  
"Not really. I didn't... I didn't know you very well, and I wasn't sure... I didn't want to upset you," she finally finished with a mental grimace. That had to be the most awkward sentence in the history of the English language.   
  
He waited for a second, then asked, "What didn't you tell me?"   
  
"My report is actually on the Gundam pilots."   
  
He relaxed a little. "I'd guessed that much, Julie. It was pretty obvious. Is that..."   
  
She cut him off. "That's not all. I'm trying a new... um, technique. I'm... I'm trying to get into their heads - the Gundam pilots, I mean. I'm trying to understand why they did... everything that they did." Julia hesitated for a moment, then plunged on. "I've been looking at files about the colonies, historical records and first-hand accounts. I've also been watching a lot of the vids of the Gundam pilots in action, whatever recorded data I could find. I've also been studying MS combat tactics, to see, maybe, where the Gundam pilots were taught, and how much their tactics deviated from the standard." She took a deep breath. "And... it's working, I think. I'm starting to understand why they did... things... and it frightens me. I... I don't think I should be able to understand that stuff... I just..." she trailed off helplessly. "And I can't talk to my dads about it..." again she trailed off. How could she possibly explain this feeling she had, that it was almost painful for her parents to discuss it? How could she possibly explain that for some reason, she thought it was more painful for them than for Richard, who'd been blinded by them? It was probably just that she knew them better, so it made her more uncomfortable to see them upset at all.   
  
"It's not just that you understand them, is it?" Richard asked quietly, a question that wasn't really a question. She heard his heartbeat speed up a little, heard the tightness in his voice, and knew that he was angry, but keeping himself under control... for now. "You agree with them, don't you?"   
  
"Yes... I mean no, I mean... I don't know..." Julia finished lamely. "I just... I think I can see why they would have thought it was..."   
  
"A solution?" he asked, more than a hint of bitterness in his voice.   
  
"No, not a solution, but... a choice, I guess. I... I'm sorry," she said, seeing the tension in his clenched fist. He had a death grip on his cane. Much harder and he'd break it. "I... I'll go now," she said, getting up, gripping her bag tightly.   
  
"No..." he reached out, and either through luck or through his highly-developed situational awareness, he managed to snag her wrist. "No. I need to talk with you about this."   
  
Julia uneasily settled back in her chair, watching him warily.   
  
He took several deep breaths, then spoke slowly, as if he was measuring each word before he used it to make sure that he didn't start screaming. Julia was fairly certain this was actually the case. "All right. I am... aware... that my superiors, and the Alliance in general, always portrayed the... Gundams in the worst light possible. They needed us willing to give our lives fighting them," he admitted unwillingly. "But, what you're saying... That's a lot to take in. I consider myself pretty open-minded, but *still*..." he cut himself off before he could raise his voice even further. He took several more deep breaths, then said, "I'm assuming that you have some sort of solid evidence, not just rumors you found on the internet?" He barely managed to keep his comment from sounding sarcastic.   
  
"No, it's not rumors," Julia responded.   
  
"Can you show it to me?"   
  
Julia blinked, then fumbled around in her backpack for a second before coming up with the discs that she'd stored all of her information on so far (at least, the stuff she'd found from legitimate sources - she wasn't stupid enough to keep records of the other stuff). She handed them over.   
  
"You should be able to read most of them with a standard text-reading file," she offered hesitantly.   
  
He nodded slightly before setting them on the table. "I... I need some time to think about all of this..." he said. "I... I want you to know that I'm... touched that you came to me with this, it's just..."   
  
"No, I understand," she said quickly. "I... I'll go now, you can look it over, or whatever..."   
  
"Thank you."   
  
Julia started shoving stuff back into her bag, but before she could stand up and leave, Richard spoke again. "Julia... you're not... a normal girl, are you?"   
  
She froze. "What do you mean?"   
  
"Julia... You don't sound like a child. You're graduating high-school, right? I think your teacher mentioned that this is your senior project." Without waiting for a response, he asked, "How old are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?"   
  
"Sixteen," she muttered when he actually did wait for a response this time. "I skipped a grade." That was entirely the truth: she had skipped a grade. She omitted the fact that she was still falling asleep in class, probably could have skipped three or four grades, and had her fathers tutoring her at night to keep her mind occupied.   
  
Julia saw shock on his face before he concealed it. Well, attempted to conceal it. She supposed that most people would have thought that his face was fairly emotionless, but they hadn't lived their whole lives with her otousan. He did a fairly credible imitation of a stone wall. "You act... you don't act like a child. And Julia... the sort of research you're talking about... I don't know much about your school or this project, but I don't think this is what they had in mind for a high-school student. I mean, just learning about combat tactics... people study that for years! I know you're just skimming the material, but still..." Julia wasn't quite sure how to tell him that she wasn't skimming the material. She was reading the same texts that young MS pilots would have read, just a lot faster, and was absorbing it a lot faster than they would have, apparently.   
  
"Julia?" he asked, and she realized that he was waiting for some kind of response.   
  
"I... I just got really interested in this."   
  
"Julia, it's not just being willing to spend the time. The sort of research you're doing..."   
  
"I... I'm pretty smart."   
  
His eyebrows narrowed until they disappeared behind his dark glasses. "You're a genius of some sort, aren't you?" he asked softly.   
  
Julia started guiltily, then looked down at her hands. "Yes." She looked up at him. "How did you know?"   
  
He shrugged. "I don't know. There was this guy at the Academy... I only saw him a couple of times, he was a mobile suit pilot, and we didn't socialize with them much, but it would have been hard to miss him. He wore this mask all the time, had the longest hair I'd ever seen, too. But he was a genius, supposedly, graduated young from the Academy with the highest scores every recorded. You remind me of him."   
  
I remind him of Zechs Marquise? Julia thought, feeling a little sick to her stomach. Based on the research she'd done, it wasn't difficult to figure out who he was talking about. The time frame was right, and besides, how many cadets were allowed to walk around with most of their faces covered? She was not particularly happy about being compared to the most notorious Oz pilot in the history of the organization, the man with the biggest number of kills of anyone in the war, save the Gundam pilots. The man who eventually went insane and tried to destroy Earth.   
  
She swallowed once and asked, "Why?"   
  
"You're alone."   
  
If there was anything she wasn't expecting, this was it. "What?"   
  
"He didn't have any friends. Everyone admired him, or was jealous, and a lot of people wanted to be him, but no one was his friend. I doubt you could find one person who'd know why he had that big helmet thing on." He shrugged slightly. "But that's what reminded me of you. I know I haven't known you very long, but as far as I can tell, you've never mentioned any friends at school, just your parents and a few people at the... um..."   
  
"Aikido..." she said automatically.   
  
"Yes. And I get the impression you don't talk to them very much outside of practices."   
  
"So now loner equals genius?"   
  
"No, loner plus sixteen-year old about to graduate plus the sort of effort you're putting into the project plus acts like an adult plus unwilling to talk about it equals genius," Richard said, his joking words only partially successful at masking the serious content.   
  
Julia sighed. "I'm a genius," she told him. "They found out when I was younger, and some group wanted me to come live with me so that they could study me, but my parents managed to stop them. That's mostly why I don't talk about it. And you're right, I don't have many friends in school. They're all older than me." There was a lot more to it than that, but she didn't really feel like getting into it right now. "And the reason I threw myself into this project... I wanted to know. I'm bored in school, a lot of the time, so when I find something that interests me..." she trailed off, seeing him stiffen up at the mention of her project.   
  
"Um... I'm going to be away for most of next week. We have holidays, and I always go visit my family on L4," she told him. "I... I guess I'll see you the week after." She got up and left.   
  
  
------------   
  
  
"Sally's right, she is hiding something from us," Duo commented that night as he sat on the bed, struggling to get a comb through his hair. The elastic he used to keep it in a braid had snapped, and it had been several hours before he could find another one. The tangle resulting from several hours of having his hair loose was a nightmare, and one he wished that he could just leave until the morning. But if he did that, it would be even worse. The mess had to be tamed before sleep. Unfortunately, Duo was not at his most patient right now, and patience was a necessary requirement for this task. As it stood right now, Duo was closer to getting all of his yanked out than getting it untangled.   
  
"Baka, let me do it," Heero said, snatching the brush out of his hand and settling onto the bed behind him.   
  
"Thanks, Heero." Duo closed his eyes for several minutes and enjoyed the bliss that was someone else dealing with his hair, when he realized that Heero had never responded to his original statement. "You saw it at dinner, too, didn't you?"   
  
"I turned down the lights in the hall and in her room and in the practice room," Heero responded. He was referring to the way that Julia kept blinking her eyes and rubbing at them during dinner in the well-lit kitchen. She hadn't said anything to them about the problem, assuming (correctly) that her parents would have realized something was seriously wrong if she mentioned it.   
  
"Good idea. But what if this doesn't go away? If this new sensitivity is permanent..." Duo couldn't even bring himself to say it. So far, despite everything, Julia was able to live a fairly normal life. Not completely normal, but he doubted that ever would have happened, given who and what her parents were. If she kept changing, she was going to be unable to function 'normally', like Katie. "Heero, we have to tell her soon. This is different than just not wanting to tell her about what we used to do."   
  
"Hai."   
  
"So... when?" Duo asked nervously.   
  
"We should tell the others," Heero said after a moment's pause. "After the visit. We shouldn't ruin it for her."   
  
"OK."   
  
  
  
  
  
Sorry to do that to Julia, she's going through some rough stuff right now. It's never fun learning that you can empathize with mass-murderers, and everything else on top of that is not helping. Richard's going to deal with this, eventually, but it was a lot to ask of him to just accept. Next section we get to meet Katie, Wufei and Sally's kids, and see what everyone's been up to for the past 15+ years.   
Marika 10/27/01


	6. Part 6

Julia sneezed, glared at the trunk from which the cloud of dust was emanating, and sneezed again. she thought, covering her nose and mouth with her t-shirt in a futile attempt to keep out some of the dust rising into the air. she thought decisively. It was unusual that Tousan would allow any part of the house to become as dirty as their attic currently was. Of course, they didn't come up here very often, but still...   
  
She was running out of places to look. Julia straightened up (well, as much as she could in the cramped space between the top floor of their house and the roof), and looked around one last time.  
  
They were leaving the next day for L4 to visit Quatre and Trowa's house (mansion) for the annual family reunion, and Julia was looking forward to it, but right now it was causing her a great deal of frustration. There was a particular shirt that Quatre had given her as a present several years ago, and this past winter she'd finally grown enough to wear it, and she loved it. She'd packed it away when summer came, with plans to dig it out of storage in time to wear on this trip.   
  
Well, she'd gotten her winter things down a while ago, and the shirt hadn't been among them. She'd been meaning for months to come up here and find it (presumably it had not simply vanished into thin air since she'd packed it away), but never quite managed to find the time. Now she was leaving tomorrow, and there wasn't any time left to put it off anymore.   
  
She was getting close to giving up, though. She'd been searching in the dusty attic for well over an hour, and hadn't seen so much as a thread from that shirt. That was frustrating in more than one way: not only was she not going to have it to show off at the reunion, but she also really liked that shirt, and for months she'd thought it was up here! She didn't know where else it could be.  
  
Julia was just about to give up when something she saw out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. She automatically turned in that direction, squinting into the near-total darkness in one of the corners of the already-dim attic. It took her several seconds to figure out what she was looking at. It was a small box, sitting by itself in that dark corner, practically invisible. She must have been up here a dozen times before and she'd never noticed it because of it's placement.   
  
Her irritation upped a notch. Julia walked over to the box. It was unlikely that her shirt was in there, but at least she could put it somewhere a little better, so that someone else wouldn't have to go through what she just did to find it.   
  
The dust on the box was extremely thick, even considering where it was. It looked like no one had disturbed it for many years, and she handled it gingerly, trying not to stir up any more dust than was absolutely necessary. She got a slight shock when she picked it up - it was a lot heavier than it looked. She carried it over to one of the boxes she'd searched earlier and set it down on top.   
  
It took her several seconds to figure out how to work the catch on the box. When she finally did, she carefully swung the lid up, and got another surprise. While the outside of the box might look old and about to fall apart, the inside was incredibly clean. The box itself was made of some durable plastic, and probably had an air-tight seal, which explained the cleanliness. But all of that was forgotten when she lifted the top layer of foam and saw what was inside.  
  
Two guns lay nestled inside the box, with the clips lying beside them, carefully packed in several layers of foam to keep them from banging around. What the hell was this doing in her attic?   
  
Julia carefully picked up one of them by the handle, holding it between two fingers to make sure that she didn't accidentally set it off. It wasn't likely to happen, since she wasn't anywhere near the trigger and the clips were lying there in the box besides, but she wasn't taking any chances. She examined it as well as she could in the dim light. It looked very well cared-for, but that was about all she could tell, knowing next to nothing about guns.   
  
She was about to put it back when another detail caught her attention - there was no registration number on the gun. She took another careful look at the gun and re-established what she already knew, that there were no sort of identifying numbers on any part of the gun. Julia put the gun down and checked the other, finding the exact same thing. Quickly setting it back in the box, she stared at it blankly for several minutes. She didn't know much about guns, but she did know that they were supposed to have numbers on them, and those numbers were supposed to be registered with the Preventers. Why were there two *unregistered* guns in her attic?  
  
Julia wanted very badly to believe that they had belonged to whoever owned the house before them, that they had been left behind and her parents had simply overlooked it the way she had when they first moved in, but she knew better. She knew how careful Tousan was about little details like that. There was no way that he would have missed something like this when he was moving it. Which meant that he and Daddy must have brought them here.  
  
Julia stiffened suddenly as the thought occurred to her, and slammed the lid closed. She hurriedly locked it, then took it back into the shadows, where it belonged. She fled the attic without looking backwards.  
  
  
---------  
  
  
Julia squirmed slightly, trying once again to get comfortable in the seat of the shuttle they were taking to L4. It was impossible. she grumbled to herself, finally straightening her legs as much as she was able, so that she could stretch them a little, then deliberately relaxing so she wouldn't get too stiff. She shuddered to think about what it would be like if she wasn't as short as she was.  
  
She looked down at her laptop, and decided that she was tired of playing games. They weren't holding her attention any more, and that was a bad thing. If she didn't keep her mind occupied, she might start thinking about what she'd found in the attic yesterday, and that wasn't a good thing. She was sure that there were all kinds of reasonable explanations as to why her parents would have two guns hidden away in their attic, like that they'd belonged to a friend or something like that. There had to be some sort of reasonable explanation, and she'd probably figure it out if she thought about it, but she didn't want to. The thought of her parents and guns was just too... wrong. It didn't make sense.  
  
But all of that meant that she needed to find something else to occupy herself. Automatically her mind traveled to her school project. There was no reason she couldn't get some work done on this trip. Julia sneaked a glance at her parents. Tousan was seated immediately to her right, and she hadn't really even needed to look at him to know what he was doing. The rapid sound of fingers hitting a keyboard told her what to expect. Sure enough, he was hunched over *his* laptop, typing away. She frowned slightly, wondering if this was going to be one of those vacations where she spent half of her time trying to drag him away from that damn thing. You weren't supposed to work when you were on vacation. Of course, it was completely different when she did it.   
  
Just beyond him, Duo-daddy was engrossed in a comic book. Julia barely managed to avoid rolling her eyes. Normally it didn't bother her when her father engaged in childish behavior (in fact, most of the time, she loved it), but this one particular habit drove her nuts. It wasn't so much that he read comic books, it was the comic books he chose... pure garbage, all of it! If he was going to look at pictures, why couldn't he have picked well-drawn pictures with some semblance of a plotline? All his ever had was one epic battle after another!  
  
In any case, her quick check revealed that they were both engrossed in their own activities and unlikely to notice that she'd switched from games to her project. Julia started opening the files that held her latest notes. She'd started concentrating on the individual Gundam pilots now, trying to figure out what she could from the way they fought. Pictures of each of the pilots had begun to form in her mind - not physical pictures, but mental images of them nonetheless, based, not on physical appearance, but on how they thought.  
  
Pilot 01 creeped her out. For so many of the recorded battles, he was so mechanical... At first, she had thought that maybe he was some sort of machine, that whoever had created the Gundams had also created some amazing new form of AI, but during the later battles, the numbers he had faced forced the pilot into innovation. There was no way any computer that she'd heard of could do that sort of creative thinking, and as far as she knew, the technology was at least a century away. The Gundams had been state-of-the-art, but not that far ahead. So that argued for just a very-well-trained human. What made a human act like a machine?  
  
Well, that was a dumb question. After all, that was basically what most armies tried to do to their recruits. Individuality was not exactly a prized quality to have in a foot soldier, mechanical obedience to orders was. And the Gundam pilot was a soldier, sort of.   
  
In any case, he fought almost all of his battles with brutal efficiency, doing exactly whatever he needed to in order to accomplish his missions and then withdrawing, leaving his enemies behind. Or so she assumed. There were no records of his earliest battles (presumably he, along with the rest, had been under orders to keep their existence from being recorded in any way: no videos, no survivors), but that was certainly the behavior he demonstrated later on. At least, that's the way it seemed, based on what she knew about his objectives on some of the missions. It was so frustrating to be working from partial data!  
  
Pilot 02 seemed to be the antithesis of 01, in every way except for his determination. His fighting style was as loud and flamboyant as 01's was economical. While most of 01's tactics were visible adaptations of tactics normally taught to MS pilots, she didn't think that 02 had any standard training at all. For some time she'd thought that maybe he didn't have any strategy at all, that he was just improvising, but then she'd taken a second look at the battles. He wasn't improvising, instead, he was using dozens of minor sequences over and over again, slipping from one to another with such fluidity that they were almost impossible to tell apart.   
  
And there was something different about the way that he approached battle, too. Maybe she was reading too much into this, but 02 seemed to throw himself into battles. 01 entered a battle, 02 practically danced into it. Another difference between them, and Julia thought she might know why: 02 had a very personal reason to be fighting. They all had them, or else they wouldn't have been there, but 02 was there for revenge, the bloody kind, while 01 treated it more like a job. Was his machine-like attitude a deliberate choice or something unconscious?  
  
03 was harder to read. He reminded her of 01 sometimes, with his efficiency and tactics, but his style was more... subtle. That was the best word she could come up with for the differences between their styles. Of course, how you could call someone who sprayed bullets wherever he went subtle was a question she wasn't ready to answer, but the description seemed to fit. His actions were always somewhat muted, he just slipped in, killed anyone who might see him (or so she assumed - sometimes the suits he destroyed were in random places, so she thought that meant that they'd stumbled onto him during missions - certainly he'd never left any witnesses behind for most of the war), and then got out. She still hadn't managed to figure out where he'd disappeared to in the middle of the war.  
  
04 was very strange, and she wasn't sure what to make of the mixed messages. On one hand, he'd actually left survivors at some of his earlier battles, the only pilot to do so. He had support troops, again, the only one. And he'd destroyed several colonies. It didn't make any sense. The rest of them, at least, were fairly consistent in their tactics. But 04... why would he appear to be the most merciful of the pilots some of the time, and then ruthlessly slaughter the very people he was supposed to protect?   
  
It had been a shock when she first realized that Gundam 01b was definitely flown by more than one of the pilots. At different times during the war she'd spotted at least three distinctive styles at the controls, and only in the later battles were the hands that of 01. Realizing that 04 had been the one in control when the Gundam blew away several colonies had been an even bigger shock. For a while she'd thought that she must be mistaken, but she replayed the scenes over and over in her head until she was sure. The tactics were wildly different. The pilot who'd destroyed the colonies was much more aggressive than the one at the beginning of the war, and his tactics were resultantly more risky, but it was still undeniably the same basic tactics. So what did that mean?   
  
She didn't have any answers, so she turned to pilot 05. His style was, surprisingly, closer to 02's than any of the others. Not the style itself, but the way that he threw himself into battles. There was something almost desperate about the way he fought.   
  
Well, that was another stupid comment. It was the five of them against a military force that ruled and entire planet. It would have been difficult to find a fight where their situation wasn't desperate. But still...  
  
Back to the task at hand. Of all of the pilots, his fighting style was the one that seemed most familiar to Julia, which probably meant that he had some sort of martial arts training. That didn't tell her much, but she was guessing that he had to have quite a bit of it, for it to show up in mobile suit combat, which meant that he had a certain level of discipline to go along with the skills she observed. It was odd to think that she had anything in common with one of the pilots.  
  
Julia frowned uneasily. It wasn't just odd, it was disturbing, too, but she... she was getting used to this kind of unease. First, finding out that she could understand why the Gundam pilots did what they did, then finding out that she could even understand the way they fought. When you came right down to it, finding out that she might have had something in common with one of them was a very minor shock.   
  
Did all of this make her a bad person? She hadn't spoken to Richard since she'd told him what she was really working on. He'd been angry, with her, with the war, with a lot of things, when she left, and she wasn't unable to admit that she'd been afraid to try to talk to him again. She wasn't sure she could handle Richard thinking that she was a bad person - in the short time she'd known him, she'd grown to value his opinions. If he didn't want to talk to her anymore... she could deal with that.  
  
Julia had almost managed to convince herself that it was true.   
  
After a few seconds, she exited the file and turned off the laptop. Maybe the trip would pass faster if she took a nap.  
  
  
---------  
  
  
A loud gong startled Julia out of her sleep. She sat bolt upright, clapping her hands over her ears and wincing, looking around wildly for the source of the sound. It took her several seconds to realize that the 'gong' was the low tone that sounded as the fasten seatbelts light came on. They were about to land on L4 - 0012. Julia closed her eyes, afraid she was about to lose control completely, and took several deep breaths. She was getting better at this. Five deep breaths later, her hearing returned to a normal, bearable level. She uncovered her ears and opened her eyes to look at Tousan's intense stare.  
  
"Are you all right?" he asked with a frown.  
  
She smiled weakly and gave a slight shrug. "Just startled me a little." He didn't look convinced. "I... I've been having a little bit of trouble recently," she finally admitted. "Like I used to have when I was little." She gestured to her ears.  
  
For a long moment, he didn't respond, and she wondered if he was about to ask her why she hadn't told him. Finally, in that gentle tone she'd only heard him use with her and Duo-daddy, he asked, "Is there anything I can do to help?"  
  
"I... I don't know."  
  
"If it gets any worse, or doesn't go away, you tell me."  
  
Julia nodded. "I will. And... Tousan?"  
  
"Hn?"  
  
"I... I just didn't want to worry you. I... I should have told you before," she said hesitantly. A second later she was enveloped in a hug by incredibly strong arms. Julia smiled slightly, and buried her face into her otousan's shoulder. "I'm sorry."  
  
"It's... all right," he said softly. "You are allowed to have some privacy, if you want. But... if there's ever anything that you want to talk about, anything, you can," he said with startling intensity.   
  
Julia stared at him for a second, then swallowed and nodded agreement. Some of the intensity left his expression, and his lips quirked upwards in his version of a smile. "Do you want to wake your father or should I?" he asked with a wicked gleam in his eyes. Over fifteen years of being married to her daddy hadn't left him completely unaffected.   
  
"Ooh, let me," Julia said anxiously. She looked on her Tousan's tray, and saw that he still had a few ice cubes left in his drink. She automatically rubbed her fingers together to make sure that they weren't extra sensitive right now (she didn't want to think about what it would feel like to touch ice when her fingers were sensitive) and when they weren't, she picked up one of the ice cubes. Duo-daddy had fallen asleep sitting straight up (she wondered how you learned to do that, both of her parents did it) so she leaned across Tousan's lap and dropped the ice cube down the front of his shirt.   
  
"Ieeeeeee!" Duo-daddy shrieked, getting the attention of every other person on the flight as he jumped out of his seat and started dancing in the aisle, trying to get the ice cube out of his clothes. He did so rather quickly, and sat back down in his seat, grinning sheepishly at the passengers who glared at him, and then leveling his own glare at Julia, who did her best to appear innocent.   
  
"Oh, you're going to pay for that," he muttered under his breath while smiling at the flight attendant who'd come to check and see if anything was the matter.   
  
Tousan's lips turned up slightly at that announcement.   
  
"And don't think that I don't know that you put her up to it," Duo-daddy continued. Tousan shot him a 'what, me?' look that wasn't any more convincing than the one Julia had just tried, and his smile widened slightly.   
  
Julia entertained herself by looking out the window and smirking as they landed on the L4 colony. Whoever was flying the shuttle was very good, there was only a tiny bump as the wheels touched down. Julia felt the slight shift in gravity as the gravity generators on the shuttle shut down, now that they were in the artificial gravity of the colony. She'd heard that most people couldn't tell the difference, but she always had been able to. She'd also noticed that her parents seemed... well, relaxed wasn't the right word, just... more at home in the colonies, and the change was evident as soon as they were under the colony's gravity.  
  
Julia waited impatiently while the shuttle taxied to a stop and all of the proper checks were made. When the pilot finally announced that they could turn off their seatbelts and start to get off, she practically flew out of her seat. Both of her parents beat her to the aisle, though, being closer to it when they started. The three of them were nearly the first ones off the shuttle, Julia and Duo-daddy dragging Tousan between them, carrying the smaller bags with their free hands.  
  
Julia saw a large crowd of people waiting just inside the terminal. "Quatre!" she shouted, recognizing the blond hair first. She let go of Tousan's arm to run towards the large group, which she now saw consisted of Quatre, Trowa, Sally, Wufei, and their three children, Rashid, the head of Quatre's security team... and Katie?! For as long as Julia could remember, Katie had never met them at the plane before. She always met them at the house. Julia wasn't even sure if she'd ever seen Katie off her father's estate. When she was very little, her parents had explained that Katie had some strange sort of psychological problem that made it difficult for Katie to deal with large groups of people. Julia had decided it would be incredibly rude and hurtful for her to question Katie about it. Katie almost always acted fairly normal around her, anyway.   
  
"Katie!" She ran up to her cousin and gave her an enthusiastic hug.   
  
"Take it easy, you're going to break me in half!" Katie said, laughing, and Julia set her down.   
  
"You came out to meet us!" Julia exclaimed, stepping back and taking a good look at Katie.  
  
Katie was strange-looking. It always made Julia feel slightly guilty when she thought that, but it was the truth. She had very pale skin that always made her look a little ill, although Katie had assured Julia that she was perfectly healthy. Her eyes were just a shade or two lighter than Quatre's, but with the pale skin it made her look like a ghost. Her hair was dark, almost black, and she was very thin, always had been. Julia was both relieved and pleased to see that Katie had finally started to develop a figure, the same as her. They were both late bloomers.  
  
Katie smiled shyly at her. "Yeah. I'm getting better, see?" She gestured to the crowds in the airport.  
  
"That's great!" Julia exclaimed, giving her another quick hug before turning to the rest of her extended family. First she hugged all of her uncles and her aunt, then she turned to the rest of her cousins. Yuko was Wufei's oldest daughter, and she was thirteen years old, and very serious. Next was Kiara, who was almost nine, and then Meiran, who was only five. The two-year-old twins were Robby and Michael (Sally had told her that she was tired of having the only Western name in the family). She gave each of them a hug - the twins had grown so much since she'd last seen them a few months ago, it was amazing. Last time, they'd been little more than babies, this time, Robby greeted her with a broad smile and a wave of his hand, and Michael even whispered hello to her (in Chinese).   
  
By the time that Julia had finished saying hi to all of her cousins, her parents had finished the strange ritual they had for greeting their 'brothers'. It seemed to consist of a greeting that was half a celebration, half checking to make sure all body parts were still in place.   
  
"You guys ready to get out of here?" Quatre asked with a smile, and Julia winced as three of Wufei's children shouted their readiness to go. Julia could already feel a headache forming from all the noise, and the shrieking right next to her eardrums wasn't helping.   
  
"You OK?" Katie asked softly, her voice little more than a whisper.   
  
"Yeah. It was just a long flight, and that was just a little loud," Julia responded with a weak smile. She grabbed Katie's hand, intending to pull her a little away from the group, but froze when Katie winced.  
  
"Are you all right?" Julia asked anxiously, immediately dropping her hand. When she was little, odd things used to bother Katie, and she was obviously on edge already from being out in public.   
  
"Yeah, I'm fine, let's get to the cars," Katie said, looking slightly more gray than usual. Almost instantly Quatre and Trowa were there, Quatre with one hand on the back of her neck, Trowa holding out an arm to steady her. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she repeated several times, shaking her head and pushing them away. Her parents gave her the same look that Julia's parents gave her when they didn't believe what she was saying but didn't want to accuse her of lying.   
  
Katie glanced at Julia and smiled slightly. "Come on, let's go, I'm sure Dad will get someone to get your bags."  
  
Julia allowed herself to be towed outside, to where a long line of limos waited. There were eight of them. Julia stopped short and stared, like everyone else on the loading platform. "Are all those waiting for us?" she squeaked, then felt very embarrassed at how childishly she was acting.  
  
Katie nodded, looking pleased. "He wanted me to have some space if I needed it," she confessed. "And once he decided to take a couple of limos... and the others found out that he was coming to pick you guys up..." she trailed off and gestured at the long line. "It just sort of built up. Then we were running late, and I think he just told a bunch of drivers to follow us. I don't think even he meant to have it become like this, though," she commented as their parents caught up with them.   
  
"Oh dear," Quatre murmured, frowning slightly as he surveyed the lineup. "I don't remember there being this many of them before."  
  
"They're multiplying," Trowa remarked, straight-faced. Did he have any other face?   
  
Katie and Julia started giggling at the same time, while Quatre shot a dirty look at his husband. Then he turned and glared at the line of limos, as if they were somehow responsible.  
  
"All right, just get in," Quatre finally said with a sigh. He headed for the first limo, and they followed him. Julia glimpsed Sally, Wufei, and their children climbing into the second as the driver opened the door for them with a slight bow.  
  
Julia climbed in, and found that there was plenty of room for all six of them. "Hey, Daddy, why don't we have one of these?"  
  
"Because I don't own a colony," Duo-daddy replied with a grin. Quatre blinked, then shrugged and smiled. Tousan was busy studying the interior of the limo and merely grunted once. Trowa's eyebrow twitched slightly.   
  
"Oh, no, don't you two start that again!" Duo-daddy warned with a fake frown. "We haven't been on the ground for ten minutes yet, at least wait until we get to his mansion before you descend into complete silence, please!"  
  
"Duo, it's not a mansion..." Quatre started, but Julia cut him off.  
  
"Did you really just tell a bunch of drivers to follow you, Uncle Quatre?" Julia asked sweetly in her most innocent voice. She was immediately regarded by four skeptical gazes from her parents and uncles. She probably gave herself away by using the word 'uncle'. She never called her uncles anything but their given names.   
  
"I think so, actually," Quatre admitted after a second. "We were running late, and..." he suddenly cut himself off.  
  
"You can say it, you were worried about me," Katie said, sounding somewhat annoyed. "I appreciate it, but I would have told you if... something was going wrong. I'm never going to get used to going out in public if you keep trying to shield me, Father! I'm not going to break!"  
  
There was a long, awkward silence in which Quatre and Katie just stared stubbornly at each other, then Katie sighed and moved to give her dad a hug. "Sorry," she apologized to Julia and her dads. "We've been having this argument for a long time now. I know they're just worried about me."  
  
As usual, it was Duo-daddy who broke the silence. "Of course he does! What else is he supposed to do with all his free time? Run that corporation of his?"  
  
That joke, poor as it was, broke the tension in the vehicle, and her fathers and uncles launched into the very serious business of catching up.  
  
  
---------  
  
  
When they got to Quatre's mansion (it really was obscenely large), Katie immediately headed for her own room. Julia watched her go, then shrugged it off. Katie always spent most of the family reunions in her own rooms with a visitor or two. Besides that, she was probably stressed out from coming to meet them, and Julia could always talk with her later. Besides, there was the rest of her family to catch up with, the twins to play with, and her problems with her senses to deal with.  
  
Julia was doing fine until Quatre's hundred sisters and their thousands of family members showed up. Now, that wasn't quite fair, Julia knew that Quatre only had a couple dozen sisters, actually, and half of them weren't even married, but when you were confronted by all of them at the same time, it certainly seemed like there were hundreds and thousands of them.   
  
It happened sort of gradually, as they started filing in a few hours after she arrived, and a few hours after that, she started to lose control of her hearing, again. At first it was just one word that would come through far too loud, every couple of minutes. Julia took several deep breaths, trying to regain control. She was not letting this ruin the reunion.   
  
For a while that worked and it went away. Then it came back again, worse than before. She forced it down again.   
  
By the time it came back the third time around, her head was beginning to throb, and she had to press her hands against her ears to keep it from getting worse. She started looking around, trying to find her parents, so that she could get some help, or some comfort, or at least so they could tell her where there was an empty room so she could go get this sorted out.  
  
Before she found them, though, Julia raised her eyes to the top of the stairs leading out of the main room, and Katie was standing there. Julia automatically tried to smile, but it was difficult to even think with the noise around her and the pounding in her head. Katie frowned, then gestured with her hand, indicating that Julia should follow her. Julia practically ran up the stairs, following Katie as she led the way to a room that Julia had never been in before.   
  
Katie stopped and waited for her to enter. Julia did so blindly, closing her eyes now to cut down on the distractions. She feared she was about to lose control of that, too. She heard (clearly, far too clearly) the door sliding closed behind her, then stumbled to her knees. The surface of the floor was somewhat springy, so she didn't hurt her knees, but it wasn't rug or anything else she could identify. Julia started counting, trying to concentrate on that to the exclusion of all else, trying to get her hearing back under control. She couldn't concentrate, she was distracted own racing heartbeat, and the pain in her head. Then she realized that she could hear a second heartbeat: Katie's calm, steady one.   
  
Her mind latched onto that, and she started count again. One beat at a time, she got herself back under control. Her hearing dialed back down to normal, and when she was unable to hear Katie's heartbeat any more, she cautiously removed her hands from her ears.   
  
She couldn't hear anything. Julia panicked. Had she permanently damaged her hearing? She always could hear things, always. She could still hear her own heart beat, which was normal, but she should have been able to hear conversations going on down stairs, individual conversations if she chose, but she couldn't.  
  
"Julia?" Katie asked softly, hardly more than a whisper.  
  
Julia opened her eyes... and saw nothing. "Katie!" she squeaked, terrified.   
  
"Shh, it's fine, just shield your eyes for a second," Katie instructed, and Julia obeyed. Even with her eyes covered, she could see the room brighten slightly. "OK, you can uncover them."  
  
Julia opened her eyes and was relieved to find that she hadn't gone blind, Katie had just turned all of the lights in the room off. Now she'd turned them back on, very low, so they didn't bother either of their eyes after the darkness, but enough so that she could see the room. There wasn't much to it, it was just an empty room with a few pillows thrown in one corner, painted light gray. Everything was exactly the same color, and the floor appeared to be some sort of mat, now that she looked at it. But none of that explained why she couldn't hear anything, or what this room was, or why Katie had turned off the lights in the first place.  
  
"Katie..."  
  
"I thought that turning off the lights might help you get control back," Katie explained. "Less to deal with. I'm sorry if I scared you."  
  
Julia stared at her. "How did you know..."  
  
Katie shrugged, a small enigmatic smile on her face. "I have my problems, you have yours. I remembered when we were little, and you used to get those headaches. You looked like that just now, and I thought this might help," she gestured to the empty rooms.  
  
"It did, thanks," Julia said gratefully, surprised that Katie had both recognized the signs and known what to do to help her. She did remember the headaches, but what was really surprising was that Katie remembered them. They'd both been about five the last time Julia had a major one here, and if she remembered correctly, Katie had spent most of that visit hidden away in her room. "What is this place?"  
  
"It's... one of my rooms," Katie said hesitantly. "It's all I could think of on short notice. There's shielding in the walls - they're completely soundproof."  
  
"Oh." That explained it. But why did Katie have a room like this?   
  
Her confusion must have been pretty obvious, because the next thing Katie said was, "You can ask me, if you want."  
  
"Do you want to talk about it?" Julia asked, guessing that that it had something to do with Katie's condition, whatever it was, but she didn't even know what that was, exactly.  
  
"I... I don't know. I never do."  
  
"Me neither."  
  
They were both silent for a minute, then Katie asked, "Are you really all right? You... you didn't look very good."  
  
"I'm fine, now. This place is great," Julia said honestly. This was the first time she could remember in a very long while that she was this relaxed. It wasn't just the silence, although that helped. The room was quiet in every way that Julia could think, from the lack of furniture or any sort of decoration that might attract the eye, to the soft surface of the floor, to the dim light that didn't bother her eyes.   
  
"Really, you like it?" Katie asked. "We can go to my room, if you like."  
  
"No, really, this place is great. Very... peaceful."  
  
Katie sat silently for another minute, then asked, "Have you talked to them about it?"  
  
Julia knew instantly what Katie was talking about. "Not very much. I'm... I don't want to make them worry."   
  
"I know what you mean," Katie responded immediately. Another minute passed. "So what have you been up to? You're graduating this year, aren't you?"  
  
"Yup. I'm spending a lot of time on my senior project."  
  
"What are you doing?"  
  
"I'm studying the Gundam pilots."  
  
Julia had become so used to the reaction she got from all the people she told that she was surprised when Katie just blinked and leaned forward slightly. "That sounds interesting," she said. "What have you done so far?"  
  
Now it was Julia's turn to blink and stare. Then she realized that Katie was her own age, and certainly hadn't lived through the war, so why should she have the same reaction as all the adults? Julia could have smacked herself. Sometimes she thought that she had to be the dumbest person she'd ever met.   
  
"You really want to know?" she asked hesitantly. There was no logical reason that Katie would be upset, but after the reactions she'd gotten so far, she was more than a little nervous about discussing this with someone.  
  
"Sure."  
  
"OK, but you probably don't want to mention this to your parents. It upsets them, because of the war," Julia warned.  
  
Katie shrugged slightly. "All right."   
  
"Well, I started by looking up all of the normal information, you know, the stuff in the history books..."  
  
  
----------  
  
  
Heero was distracted from Wufei's latest complaint about how horrible the schools were and why he was thinking about educating his children himself when Duo poked him in the side with an elbow and whispered, "Hey, where's Julie?"  
  
Heero turned to where he'd last seen her, standing and watching some of Quatre's nieces play some game that involved a lot of giggling, but she wasn't there anymore. He automatically began to scan the room, looking for his daughter. Despite the fact that there were well over a hundred people present, he had no difficulty establishing the fact that his daughter was not among them. It wouldn't have mattered if there'd been a thousand people, he still would have been able to establish whether she was among them or not in seconds.   
  
The training J had given him in locating a target for assassination had other applications, and she *was* his daughter.  
  
He frowned and shook his head slightly at Duo, letting him know that he didn't know where she was.  
  
"What's wrong?" Quatre asked, noticing the exchange.   
  
"Did you see where Julie went?" Duo asked.   
  
"She was playing with Meiran and the twins before," Wufei remarked without meeting their eyes. Heero hadn't missed the fact that Wufei hadn't taken his eyes off Julia for an instant when she was playing with his children.   
  
Duo hadn't missed it, either. "She didn't hurt them, Wufei. And she isn't going to," he said, his voice quiet, but his face conveying a world of accusation and hurt.  
  
"Not on purpose..." Wufei started, then cut himself off. "I am sorry," he apologized. "I know that she would never intentionally hurt them. But Sally mentioned that she was having some difficulties, and they *are* my children..." he trailed off, and Duo's expression visibly softened.   
  
"It's all right, Wu," he said softly. "I understand. Hell, I'd probably do it too, if it was Julie who was the little one." He paused for a second, then continued. "And you're right, a little. I don't spar with her anymore."  
  
The other three turned to stare at Duo. "Why not?" Quatre asked, voicing the question they all had to be thinking.  
  
"It was getting a little rough," Duo admitted, rubbing the back of his head. "When she's practicing in her dojo, she always controls herself a lot - that sort of restraint is part of the atmosphere they build there. It's an interesting place." Duo looked thoughtful for a second, then shrugged. "Anyway, neither of us were taught - or learned - that kind of restraint when we learned to fight, and it shows in the way we approach any fight, even if we're just sparing. She responds to that, and..." he trailed off and shrugged again.   
  
"Did she hurt you?" Wufei asked.  
  
Duo shrugged again. "Just a couple a bruises, nothing serious." That wasn't quite true, she'd nearly cracked his ribs the last time they sparred. Duo had not only managed to finish the match with nothing more than a slight grimace that he waved off when she questioned him, he had managed to make it through dinner that evening before he collapsed on their bed and let Heero take a look at his side, which had turned entirely black and blue by that point. Duo had made Heero promise not to mention it to Julia right before the pain killers Heero gave him kicked in. "But Heero spars with her most of the time, now."  
  
"Are you all right?" Quatre asked, a worried frown on his face.   
  
Heero grunted an assent, mentally going over the layout of Quatre's house, marking off places that he knew Julia wouldn't have gone.  
  
"That still doesn't answer the question," Duo pointed out sharply. "Now, lets try this again, does anyone have any idea where she went?"  
  
Heero happened to be looking at Quatre right then, so he saw when Quatre stiffened and his eyes glazed over. "Quatre?"  
  
"Julia's with Katie," Quatre remarked matter-of-factly, still staring into space. "Katie says that the noise was beginning to get to her, so she brought her up to the quiet room." He shook his head slightly and then blinked several times, clarity returning to his eyes. "They're talking now."  
  
There was a short silence, then Duo asked, "Did she... just tell you now?" he asked slowly, tapping his own forehead.  
  
Quatre nodded. "Her range has gotten better. She can reach me almost anywhere in the colony, now, and she can get through to Trowa if she's near enough." He smiled at the taller man, whose lips quirked upwards slightly in return.   
  
"Man, that is just so creepy," Duo commented, relaxing now that he knew where Julia was.  
  
"Oh, you get used to it," Quatre replied, his eyes still somewhat distant.  
  
"I don't see how you ever get used to something like that," Duo said, shaking his head and shuddering. "She's crawling around in your head!"  
  
Quatre finally turned and looked directly at Duo, instead of into space. He looked distinctly irritated. "It's not like that, Duo! She's not looking around in my head for information, she's just projecting her thoughts so that I can hear them!"   
  
Duo just shook his head, while Heero watched, amused. The two of them had acted this way, sometimes friendly, sometimes antagonistic, for as long as he could remember. Duo said it had something to do with the fact that they were the only ones who talked in their odd group. Heero knew that Duo meant what he'd said about Katie 'crawling around in his head' no more than Quatre was as irritated as he now appeared. Duo wasn't completely comfortable with Katie's abilities, but as was demonstrated by Wufei, the others weren't completely comfortable with Julia, either. Heero could understand that; he would never admit it, but there were times that Julia's abilities scared him.   
  
He wasn't afraid of her, although she was strong enough now that she could seriously hurt him if he wasn't careful and she ever lost control. He was very afraid for her, though. He remembered all too clearly the blinding headaches that had afflicted her when her powers first started developing, the helpless frustration he'd felt until they figured out how to give her some kind of control. Even worse, he remembered the barely-concealed panic in Quatre's voice during the time when Katie's powers suddenly appeared.   
  
It was a long time, months, before they were able to find something that would help quiet the voices in her head. By that time, she couldn't bear to be around Quatre, who had abilities similar to her own (though of a much lower scale), and Trowa had sat for long hours by her bedside while Quatre got as far away as he could, so he didn't make the situation worse by projecting his thoughts at her without meaning to. Even though they'd never mentioned it specifically, Heero also knew that it had caused a real strain on their relationship for a while.   
  
It had been sheer luck when they stumbled across the odd alloy that would stop mental projections, and provide Katie with some measure of quiet and rest. Now half of the rooms in the house were lined with the metal, so that Katie could relax and let the shields protect her mind whenever she needed to rest. It was only the discovery of the shield metal that had saved Katie's sanity, and maybe even her life.  
  
Heero was terrified that one day Julia's powers would finally be too much for her, that they wouldn't stop getting stronger when she finished growing, that they'd just keep on getting stronger and stronger until she couldn't bear to be around people at all. That one day she'd be limited to a quiet room, a place where every thing that her senses had to process could be completely controlled. When he thought of that, Heero tended to grind his teeth and wish that he'd gotten to the doctors before the Preventers had, so that he could have delivered a suitable punishment to them. How could they have thought that they could meddle with people this way, and expect the children to pay the price for it?  
  
With a noticeable effort Heero pulled his thoughts away from this dark path, forcing himself to watch Duo and Quatre's good-natured arguing, and trying not to worry about his daughter.  
  
  
  
  
  
Sorry that this chapter took so long to get out. Life has been a little crazy, and I just spent the last week taking care of my brother, who just had major reconstructive surgery for his ACL. Taking care of him did not leave me in a mood that was conducive to writing, so this took about six times as long as it should have.  
I'm not crazy about this section, specifically the way I portrayed Quatre and Trowa's relationship and family, but I've already rewritten it a couple of times, and it's not getting any better. Any suggestions would be welcome.   
There are about a hundred little scenes I would have loved to put into this section, about the reunion and the pilots' families and how they act around each other, but I had to streamline the plot somewhat in order to keep this section to under a hundred pages. Hope you enjoy. And sorry for another incredibly long author's note.  
Marika 11/25/01 


	7. Part 7

Julia was just finishing breakfast when the phone rang. She answered it, and found herself looking at Wufei's face. "Hi Wufei! Long time no see!" she said with a grin.   
  
He smiled briefly at her, although the expression looked somewhat forced. Julia didn't mind - like Tousan, Wufei didn't smile very much, and even if he was forcing himself, it was nice of him to make an effort for her. "How was the flight home?" he inquired politely.  
  
"Tousan didn't stop typing the entire time. Well, except for when Daddy tried to braid his hair," Julia grinned at the memory. She was grinning a lot nowadays. She didn't know what it was, the rest from school or something else, but her eyes and ears hadn't been giving her as much trouble as they had been at the beginning of the trip. They hardly broke free of her control more than once or twice a day during the entire trip, and they'd also behaved themselves on the shuttle ride back, for which Julia was very grateful. It was bad enough when it happened at home or school, when she could at least get up and go somewhere quiet for a few minutes, but trapped on the shuttle with all those other people...  
  
She didn't know how long this was going to last, but she intended to make the most of it while it did!  
  
The other reason she was smiling was that when they'd gotten back yesterday, there'd been a message waiting for her from Richard, saying that he'd thought about it and he'd like to talk to her whenever she got back. It was difficult to tell from the brief message, but he didn't look or sound like he was angry with her anymore. She'd find out soon enough - she was planning on heading over to see him as soon as she finished breakfast. It was already almost noon - she'd slept very late, both because of exhaustion from the trip and because of the time difference between here and L4. As far as her body was concerned, it was very early in the morning.  
  
"How was your trip back?" Wufei, for his part, looked far too awake for her tastes. He was on the same schedule as her, how come he looked perfectly awake and aware and she was having trouble keeping her eyes open?   
  
"Fine. Is your fat... is Heero around?" he corrected himself, and Julia stifled a giggle. How many years had she been around, and he still made that mistake every time that he asked to speak to one of her fathers.   
  
"Didn't you guys talk enough about me and your kids in the past week?" Julia asked playfully.   
  
Wufei smiled gave her a slight smile again, this one more real. "Enjoyable as that is, that's not why I called."  
  
"So why did you?"  
  
"It's just business."  
  
That got Julia's attention. "What kind of business?" Tousan worked for a computer company, Wufei worked for the Preventers. They didn't work together. Maybe Wufei was just talking about giving Tousan something he'd left behind at Quatre's or something.  
  
Wufei blinked, then frowned slightly. In the next instant the expression was gone as if it had never passed his face, and Julia wondered if she was imagining things. He raised one eyebrow and asked, "Can I speak with him?" with just a hint of irritation in his voice. Julia wasn't entirely sure whether he was teasing her or not about being irritated, and decided to play it safe.  
  
"I'll get him." Julia turned her head towards the bedroom, where both of her fathers were still getting dressed, and hollered, "TOUSAN! PHONE!" She distinctly heard a loud thump from the other room, and a couple seconds later heard Daddy muttering words that he definitely wouldn't use if he knew she could hear him. A couple of seconds after that, Wufei's gaze shifted slightly, looking to one side of her, and Julia knew that Tousan had picked up the call on the phone in his room.   
  
"Thank you, Julia," Wufei said, just before she hung up the phone in the kitchen.   
  
"No problem!" she replied, still wondering what, exactly, they were talking about. She quickly decided that it was none of her business, finished breakfast, and cleaned up the kitchen a little.   
  
Deciding she'd waited long enough for her parents to get dressed, Julia walked down the hall and knocked on their door.   
  
After a few seconds Duo cracked open the door, wearing a bathrobe and a glare. His hair was mostly out of it's braid, for once, sticking out in a thousand different directions and tangling around his arms.   
  
"I'm going out, I'll be back later," she told him.  
  
"Where?"  
  
"Going to see Richard." Julia didn't miss the well-concealed grimace that crossed his face before he went back to glaring.   
  
"You know, Julie honey, there are better ways of getting our attention then screaming at the top of your lungs from the other end of the house," he pointed out.  
  
"But then I would have had to walk over here," she responded reasonably.   
  
"It's three miles to visit Richard, and you usually walk there!" he protested.  
  
"Yes, but that's different, Daddy," she said, leaning over and giving him a kiss on the forehead.  
  
He blinked, then glared at her. "Don't think you're getting off easy because of that," he warned her.  
  
"Of course not, Daddy."  
  
He glared at her again, then he became serious. "Seriously, Julie. Your otousan and I need to talk to you later, OK?"  
  
Julia looked at him, concerned. It took a lot to make him stop joking around. "Is something wrong?"  
  
"No, it's fine."  
  
"OK," she replied, unconvinced. "I'll talk to you later, then."  
  
"Sure."  
  
  
---------  
  
  
Julia found herself sitting in the foyer again, trying to keep her feet from tapping. This time she didn't have any paper to tear into confetti.   
  
After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes, she heard soft footsteps on the carpet. She looked up and Richard was standing in the doorway, an expectant look on his face. When several seconds passed without either of them speaking, Julia finally found her voice. "Hi. Um. How have you been?"   
  
She winced. That sounded awful, like every single syllable was being dragged out of her.   
  
"Fine. How was your vacation?" he asked with a slight smile.  
  
He seemed to be acting friendly enough. Maybe he didn't hate her. He had asked to talk to her, after all. "Pretty good. I had a good time. We just got back last night."  
  
"Come on, we need to talk." He gestured for her to follow him, and then led her back to the small room they'd met in last time. Julia hesitated slightly when she saw where they were - she didn't exactly have the most pleasant memories of this place - but after a moment she steeled herself and stepped inside.   
  
"Here." Richard held out the disk with all of her research that she'd given him the last time.   
  
"Ah, thanks." Julia took the disk, but since she'd come without her backpack, she didn't have anywhere to put it, so she just rested it on her lap.   
  
Richard sat quietly for a moment, then said, "I wanted to apologize to you, Julia. I've known you for a while, I should have known that you wouldn't make a claim like that frivolously."  
  
"It's all right," Julia said uncomfortably. "I knew that it was a sensitive topic with you, I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry."  
  
"Still... I didn't know," he told her, looking very unhappy.  
  
Now she was really confused. "What?"  
  
"I didn't know. If I had... I don't know what I would have done. But I didn't know," he repeated.  
  
"Didn't know what?" she repeated, worried.  
  
"All that stuff about the colonies. I had no idea things were like that there. All I knew was that we were at war with them, that they'd sent terrorists to kill us."  
  
Oh. That explained it. "It wasn't your fault," she said immediately. "I had to hunt for this stuff, now, when the government doesn't really have any reason to hide it. Back then... there was no way you could have known. Look, I didn't give you that stuff so you'd feel guilty!" Julia wasn't certain exactly why she was irritated, but she was. How dare he go and make himself feel bad over something that he couldn't have done anything about anyway!  
  
Richard chuckled at her, and after a couple of seconds, Julia chuckled too. "That was pretty ridiculous, wasn't it?" Julia asked,  
  
"Fairly," he agreed easily. "Why did you show it to me, though?"  
  
"I just... I needed someone to talk to, and... well, you know that I don't have any friends, and my advisor... she doesn't approve of where I'm taking this at all..."  
  
"Hmmm. You have a lot of information there. It took me most of the week just to go through it."  
  
"Yeah, well, I'm a genius, remember?" Julia joked weakly. She wasn't quite sure how to handle him knowing her secret. Her parents were the only other ones who knew, and they didn't joke about it.   
  
"Yes, but you've still got a bunch of big holes. Is this all the information you have?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"I'm assuming that you didn't write everything down. I wanted to know what you left out. Do you know anything about what happened that made the pilots go underground after they killed the doves?"  
  
"No," Julia shook her head. "I thought something must have happened, but I've never been able to find any files to substantiate that."  
  
Richard snorted. "There's a good reason for that. When I first heard about Operation Peace, I thought that it had to be some kind of sick joke. It wasn't until weeks later that I found out that it actually happened, and that was after I'd been injured. So I didn't really care, even then. I just remembered it when I was reading your information."  
  
"What operation?" she demanded eagerly.  
  
"Operation Peace," he repeated. "It was the code name for Colonel Une's plan to capture the Gundam pilots. Nice bit of irony, there," he added. "Naming any military maneuver 'peace'. Come on," he said, standing up.  
  
"Where are we going?" she asked as he led her out of the room. "You can't just tell me that much and not tell me the rest of the story."  
  
"I wasn't there," he replied. "But there's someone here who was. I'd rather you hear it from him first, then you can ask me some questions. Just let me speak to him first, make sure he remembers that he agreed to talk to you."  
  
"Remembers?"  
  
"Yes. If he does talk to you, just listen to what he has to say and thank him. I don't want to get him upset."  
  
"Richard, what happened to him?" Julia asked quietly, certain now that Richard was avoiding talking about it. He slowed minutely.  
  
"John... has lost more than most, even here. A few weeks after the battle I was talking about, he was in a fight with some of the former Alliance forces. His mobile suit got shot out from under him, and he got hit on the head and took some serious damage. He can remember bits and pieces of the war... and that's about it. He doesn't remember anything of his past before the war, and his memory after it is very shaky. He doesn't even remember his name. They've been trying for over fifteen years to either find a living relative or to help him start to remember, but so far they haven't had any success. But he did say that he wanted to tell you himself, and it isn't that often that he makes requests like that... is this all right with you?"  
  
"Yeah, it's fine," Julia said nervously, squaring her shoulders. This was what she'd been expecting when she first met Richard, a man whose life had been entirely destroyed by the war. She hadn't looked forward to it then, and she didn't think it was going to be much fun now. But it wasn't this man's fault that something horrible had happened to him, and if nothing else, she owed it to Richard. "I'd like to hear it from him."  
  
A small smile appeared on Richard's face. "Thank you," he said as they entered a large lounge. A bunch of men were crowded on couches around a large television, watching a sports program, every so often making loud comments directed at the coaches and players. "Wait here for a second," Richard told her. He spoke quietly to a couple of men who were playing cards. One of them set down the cards and stood up. Richard grabbed his arm at the elbow, and the other man guided him to a corner where a man sat in a large chair, looking at a book. He wasn't reading it - Julia could clearly see his eyes, and they weren't tracking back and forth as he scanned the lines - he was just staring into space. Richard thanked the man who'd guided him, sat in the chair opposite the man, and started talking.   
  
Julia was distracted from watching them when there was a loud exclamation from the group of men watching the television, followed by a great deal of booing. She shifted her attention back to the screen, and saw that there was some kind of news announcement being made. It was interrupting the sports show, which was the reason for all the shouting. Julia would have turned away again, except that she noticed a small figure standing off behind and to the side of the person making the announcement. Chang Wufei, looking ever-so-serious, stood there, obviously as a guard for Lady Une, the head of the Preventers. Out of curiosity, she concentrated her hearing on the screen, so she could hear what was being said over the disgruntled mumbling.  
  
"...managed to trace the electronic trail back to it's source, so that we will be able to apprehend every individual involved in this misguided attempt to resurrect mobile suit combat in the present age of peace..." Julia tuned it out again. Like most of what politicians said, anything Lady Une said was going to have a great deal of propaganda in it. If she wanted the facts, she could always look at a newspaper or something... Julia was about to turn back to Richard when something struck her as she stared at Wufei's face.  
  
:Wait a minute... trace the electronic trail?! And Wufei said he wanted to talk to Tousan about business this morning...: Was her father working for the Preventers?  
  
It sort of made sense, now that she thought about it. He was very good, there was no doubt about that. But the thought of her father working for the Preventers was just strange. Of course, Wufei knew that Tousan was very good, and they were good friends, Wufei had probably hired Tousan himself for this one thing. That made sense.  
  
"Julia?" Julia turned automatically at the call, and saw Richard gesturing for her to come over. She steeled herself and obeyed, taking another chair in the corner.   
  
"John... this is Julia, she's the one who wanted to hear the story," Richard said slowly. John turned his head towards her, his eyes focusing briefly on her face before sliding away.   
  
"Julia," he mumbled to himself, then turned back towards Richard. "Have I ever met her before?" he asked.  
  
"No, this is the first time you've met her," Richard explained patiently. Julia realized with a start that 'John' almost certainly was not that man's real name. How could it be, when he couldn't remember anything else about his past?   
  
"Ah. She wants to hear about that battle? Very few people do. It was..." the man's face twisted into a parody of a smile, "... a great victory, wasn't it? They were on the verge of surrendering. That boy blew himself up. All we had to do was threaten thousands and thousands of innocent lives."   
  
"What?" Julia asked, momentarily forgetting that she wasn't supposed to ask questions. "What happened?"   
  
"Colonel Une happened. We got out there, and suddenly she was on broadband, saying that she'd blow up the colonies if the Gundam pilots didn't surrender. They were fighting, and they just... stopped. It was so silent, so very silent..." he mused to himself. He fell silent for a minute, then continued as if he'd never trailed off. "No one knew if it was going to work or not, then all of a sudden, there was an old man, saying that he'd surrender himself, but not the Gundams. Then the hatch of the first Gundam popped open, and the pilot came out. Damn it, he was just a kid! All that time fearing them, and he was just a kid!" His voice had a slightly hysterical tinge in it, now, and Richard looked mildly alarmed. "He just stood there for a second, then he raised his hand... and he self-destructed his own damn suit! While he was standing in it! Didn't even try to get clear, just pushed the button, everything went white... Three of our guys got caught up in the explosion. Just stepped out and killed himself..." he mumbled, his eyes losing the clarity they'd had a moment before. His eyes drifted closed after a couple of seconds, and when he opened them again, they were as glazed as they'd been when she first arrived. "Richard," he said slowly. "Didn't you want me to help you with something?"  
  
"You just did, thank you," Richard said quietly.  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Thank you very much," Julia said, standing up. He turned to look at her, and she saw from the confusion on his face that he had no idea who she was. She managed a weak smile and beat a hasty retreat to the other side of the room.   
  
A few minutes later, Richard joined her by the door and they silently walked back to the room they'd started in. "What happened, exactly?" she asked slowly. She thought she understood what was happening, but she wanted to make sure before she jumped to any enormous conclusions. And this was pretty enormous, if she was right.  
  
"He said it pretty clearly, this time," Richard said quietly, aware of how serious the issue was. "Lady Une threatened to destroy several of the colonies with space-based missile systems unless the Gundam pilots surrendered. Instead of surrendering, pilot 01 stepped out of his Gundam and self-destructed. Presumably they all would have done it if someone hadn't overridden the Colonel's orders and let the rest of them escape."  
  
"He... he said the pilot was just a kid," Julia said slowly. "Like early twenties? Just out of the Academy?"  
  
"Probably, I don't know, not many people actually saw him," Richard replied. "Does this help you?"   
  
"Yes! I mean... I've been trying to figure out what happened then for months, and... thank you!" :So that's what happened to 01a. I wonder how the pilot survived...: There was no doubt in her mind that the pilot had indeed survived, somehow. She would have noticed if the tactics had changed noticeably, and they would have, if there'd been a new pilot 01. She felt an obscure sense of relief that he had somehow survived. She remembered stumbling across a report somewhere that said that pilot 01 was 'more than human'. Maybe this was what they were referring to.   
  
"Julia?"   
  
Julia started, and realized that in her preoccupation with the new information, she'd completely missed whatever Richard had just said. "What?"  
  
"Can you come back later this week?"  
  
"Come back?" Julia said, attempting to drag her thoughts back on track. "But I just got here a half-hour ago."  
  
Richard raised one eyebrow. "Are you saying you don't want to go home right now and add this to your notes?"  
  
"Um... no?" Julia said. It didn't sound as if she was even making an attempt to sound convincing. "Sorry," she apologized as Richard chuckled.   
  
"It's all right, I thought this would happen. It's my own fault for not talking to you *before* I gave you something to think about," he said, waving a hand to show that he really didn't mind. "You are going to come back and tell me about your vacation, aren't you?" he asked with mock sternness.  
  
"Yes, of course I will!" Julia said, standing up. "You really don't mind? I just really want to think through some things..."   
  
"It's fine, as long as you let me have a look at the final product," Richard said, his face once again slightly uneasy. "Julia, I really am interested in what you have to say about this. I'm not sure what to think, exactly, but I am here if you need to talk, all right?"  
  
"Thanks, that means... a lot to me," Julia said gratefully. "I'll talk to you later."  
  
  
---------  
  
  
:They weren't expecting to live through it.: Julia sat back in her chair, staring at the computer screen, and shivered. :No wonder they took such risks. No wonder they threw themselves into battle. They all felt like they had nothing to lose.: The shiver grew more pronounced.  
  
Julia had run all the way home from visiting Richard, snagged a peanut-butter sandwich on her way through the kitchen, and headed upstairs to her room to review everything she'd seen and thought about the Gundam pilots with this new information. They were willing, even waiting to die for their cause. To just obey and order like that... Julia shivered again, wishing that she didn't understand them as much as she felt she did. If she hadn't studied them so thoroughly, hadn't worked so hard to get into their heads, maybe she wouldn't feel like this now... empty. They must have already counted themselves as dead. How could anyone live like that?  
  
A lot of things made more sense now, like Oz's silence on the matter of why the Gundams had gone into hiding - they *knew* why the Gundams had gone into hiding. They'd done it to protect the colonies. It also explained why the Gundams had reappeared immediately *after* the colonies cut them loose. Once the colonies had officially denied any connection with the Gundams, Oz must have assumed that the Gundams wouldn't care if they threatened the colonies. So in an odd way, by betraying the Gundams, the colonies had freed them to act. It was still completely unforgivable.   
  
It also reinforced her impression that the pilots must have had a very good reason to fight. It was one thing to dedicate your life to a cause, it was another thing to give it up before you even started. Because that was the only way she could see 01 - or any of them - being that ready to kill themselves. He obeyed orders, but even so...  
  
Julia realized that she wasn't being particularly objective at this point, but by now, she'd invested way too much of her time, energy, and thoughts into it to have any pretense at objectivity. She'd spent the past several months trying to get into the heads of the pilots, trying to *become* them at some level - you couldn't do that without loosing objectivity. It was going to make things more difficult when she finally got around to writing up her project.   
  
Abruptly pushing her chair back and standing up, Julia paced back and forth across her room for several minutes, trying to take a step back. The real reason that she was thinking that 01 wouldn't just obey an order to kill himself was that she didn't want to believe it. She didn't really know what he had been like, but a person who would give their life to a cause, who would kill themselves at an order to save innocents did not deserve to be given that order. If that old man, whoever he was, had expected 01 to follow that order, and it seemed likely that he had, he should not have given it. There should have been a better way.   
  
That was patently ridiculous. The world was not a fair place, and bad things happened, if that wasn't the case the war would never have happened. Just because she thought something was wrong didn't mean anything. And things certainly didn't change just because she thought they should.   
  
But... at another level, wasn't that exactly what the Gundam pilots had done? At some point they must have decided that there was something wrong with the way things were, and they went and did something about it.   
  
Julia heard a knock on the door and Duo-daddy said, "Julia, are you sure you're all right?"  
  
"Fine," she answered automatically.  
  
"All right, then we're going to bed."  
  
:Bed?: Julia turned to look at the clock on her wall, and realized that it was a little after midnight. That was impossible, wasn't it? Where the hell had the time gone? She'd gotten back from visiting Richard a little before 2 in the afternoon. Surely it hadn't been that long already?   
  
Julia had an unfortunate tendency to get so engrossed in a project that she would become oblivious to any outside event, including the passage of time, the attempts of her parents to get her attention, the ringing of her alarm clock, or any number of things that she really should have paid more attention to. But usually she only lost an hour or two when working on a project (all right, three or four was more typical, and she knew she'd lost six or seven a couple of times), but this had to be a new record!   
  
:This is getting absolutely ridiculous.: Now that Julia thought about it, she dimly remembered one or both of her parents trying in vain to get her attention, probably to come down for dinner, and her brushing them off. Julia deliberately turned off the screen of her computer. She'd been at this more than long enough, and now that she'd finally snapped out of it, she was aware of other discomforts that had crept up on her while she wasn't paying attention. She was starving, for instance, having only had a quick breakfast and a peanut butter sandwich to tide her over all day. She also had to go to the bathroom quite badly. Plus she hadn't taken a shower today, so she was beginning to feel quite filthy. Not to mention the fact that it was after midnight and she had school tomorrow. Not that she actually needed to be awake for that, but still...  
  
Julia got up and crept down the stairs as quietly as she could manage, aware that she was probably going to keep her parents awake despite her best attempts otherwise. She quickly heated up a can of soup (the refrigerator was basically empty, since they'd just gotten home) and ate it as quickly as she could manage. When she crept back up the stairs, she could still hear her parents talking quietly. She quickly stripped, wrapped a towel around herself, and then walked to the bathroom, which was luckily at the other end of the house from her parents' room. There she showered as quickly as she could manage and still get her hair clean. It wasn't until she was almost finished that she remembered that her parents had wanted to talk to her, and she must have ignored them and missed the meeting. She promised herself that she'd talk to them first thing in the morning. As she quietly walked back to her room, she was pleased to note that the sounds of talking coming from her parents' room had ceased, and she could hear two slow, steady heartbeats.   
  
She smiled to herself and finished walking back to her room. There, she closed the door, toweled herself off, and changed into pajamas. She cast one last longing look at the computer before firmly telling herself that she did need to get some sleep tonight, and climbing into bed.   
  
  
---------  
  
  
Julia did not sleep well that night. Her dreams were a jumble of everything she'd learned about the Gundam pilots, and a great deal of things that weren't. An old man she'd never seen before looked at her disapprovingly, then told her to go kill herself. Before she could respond, she stood on a battlefield, as a pilot stepped out of Gundam 01. But it wasn't the pilot of 01, it was her own Tousan, and as he raised his hand and pushed the self-destruct button, she could hear Duo-daddy screaming. Slowly the screaming died down to a mere whimper, but somehow that was even worse than the screaming.   
  
It sounded like... she didn't know, she had never heard anything like it before, there was nothing for her to compare it to. It sounded like someone was having their heart torn out, like something in them had be broken beyond repair... it was the most horrible sound Julia had ever heard...  
  
Julia started awake, her heart racing. Her entire body was one clenched muscle, she was shaking slightly, and she could feel sweat soaking her nightclothes. :What... what was that...: Her mind seemed to be refusing to function, which might have been why it took her several seconds to recognize the sound of low conversation coming from her parents room. Was that what had finally woken her? She concentrated on her parents' voices.  
  
"...you all right?" once again she heard that odd, very tender note in her otousan's voice.   
  
There was a long silence, then Daddy finally whispered, "You know I'll be fine." There was another long silence, then, "It's just with everything that's happening, it keeps coming back." He laughed weakly. "I know Julie doesn't mean it, but she's not making things any easier..." he trailed off, while Julia felt a deep stab of guilt. She'd been right, it was her fault! She was doing something wrong, something that was making him have bad dreams... She cut off that trail of thought when Duo-daddy spoke again. "I'm not going back to sleep tonight. Is that all right?" There was an odd little hitch in his voice that sounded vaguely familiar, and Julia let her concentration slip as she tried to remember where she'd heard something like that before.  
  
She missed Tousan's answer as she realized where she'd heard that sound before. :Oh God, the whimpering. He sounds like that... it's the same tone... I must have heard him while I was sleeping, that's what woke me up... Oh God, he's the one that was making those sounds, I made him make those sounds...: Before she even realized what she was doing, Julia stood up and grabbed a robe off the hook near the door as she threw it open and hurried down the hall to her parents' room. She knocked on the door, silently counted to five to give them a chance to throw the sheets over themselves if they were indecent, and then pushed open the door.  
  
It was dark in the room, but Julia forced her eyes to adjust and in less than a second everything took on a crystalline clarity despite the lack of light. She had just an instant to see the naked shock on both her fathers' faces, as well as the open pain showing in her Daddy's eyes before they both recovered. It was almost painful to see the pain in his eyes suddenly disappear as he tried to hide it from her. For a moment they just stood there, staring at each other.  
  
"Julie, what's wrong?" Daddy finally asked, reaching for the light on the table right next to his bed. Julia threw her arm up in front of her eyes to protect them from the sudden light, frantically trying to reduce the sensitivity that she'd called up seconds before. She was mostly successful, and only winced slightly when he turned on the light. Daddy got up from where he was lying in Tousan's arms, looking concerned.   
  
"Daddy!" Julia took several steps forward, wanting to give him a hug, but at the same time irrationally afraid that she'd somehow cause him more harm. "I'm sorry!" she cried, fighting back tears.   
  
Daddy immediately looked more alarmed, and quickly crossed the distance between them, embracing her. "What's happened? Are you all right? Why are you so upset?" the words tumbled over themselves as he spoke.  
  
Julia shook her head, crying freely now, and pulled away. "It's my fault. It's all my fault. I'm sorry. I don't know what I did, but I'm sorry! I know I shouldn't, but I couldn't help it..." she broke down sobbing, and allowed Duo-daddy to pull her back against his chest, stroking her head gently.  
  
"Shhh, shhh, now calm down. I know you'd never do anything to hurt either of us, all right? I know that. Tousan knows that. Now, what do you think you did that was so horrible? Is this about earlier?"  
  
"Yes... no!" Julia corrected herself. "No, it's more than that. I... I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, but I've heard you. A lot. In the last few months." She felt him tense, and the hand stroking her head stilled for several seconds before resuming it's motion. Before she could loose her nerve, Julia quickly continued, "Ever since that first night I asked you about living in the colonies. You... you keep having nightmares, and it's my fault, and I don't understand! You were... you were talking about Maxwell, and I don't know what that means!" She felt him tense again as she mentioned his own last name. "Please," she pleaded. "Explain to me, what Maxwell it, please! I won't ever mention it again, I promise! I just need to know, so I can stop! I... I'm sorry!" she broke down sobbing again.   
  
Tousan turned on a few more lights, and then came over to stand with her and Daddy, placing a comforting hand on her back. "Shhh, shhh, it's going to be fine, shhh... take it easy," Daddy soothed, guiding her over to the bed, where they all sat down. "None of this is your fault. Really. You listening? This is not your fault. If anything, it's my fault." Julia stared at him and shook her head slightly. She knew what she'd heard earlier.   
  
"Look, there were some things we wanted to talk to you about, anyway," Daddy continued. "I have to admit, two in the morning is not the exact time for discussing it that I had in mind, but I guess it will have to do," he joked, and Julia smiled weakly. "I'll explain to you about Maxwell first, and then we'll get into... other things."  
  
Julia wondered briefly what 'other things' he was talking about, but put that aside for the moment as he began to speak.   
  
"You already know that I'm from L2, originally, I think."  
  
"You think?"  
  
Duo-daddy gave her a kind smile. "I'm an orphan. I think. I can't remember ever having a family, at least."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"What do you know about L2? I don't want to be repeating anything."  
  
"Um... I know that it was in an economic slump for a long time before the war, but that very little aide was getting through to it. There were a lot of slums there. Ah, there were a bunch of plagues that swept through there, with varying results..."  
  
"That... that's far enough," Daddy stopped her. "The plague is as good a place to start as any."  
  
"The plague?" Julia asked with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.   
  
"Yeah. L2 wasn't a great place to be an orphan," he said quietly, his tone light, but Julia could tell it was forced. "I grew up on the streets. There were some gangs, and one of them took me in. Well, the guy in charge of the gang took me in. Taught me how to stay alive, basically. His name was Solo." A shadow of some painful emotion passed over his face. "Then there was one of the plagues... and he died." The closed-in look on his face made her think that there was more to it than that, but he had told her enough. "That's when I picked my first name, actually," he said.  
  
"You... picked your first name?" Julia asked, confused. No one did that.  
  
"Well, I was an orphan, and a street rat to boot. There weren't exactly a ton of people lining up to name me. It was better, actually, not to have one on the street. You didn't know people's names, you didn't hurt as much when they died. But after Solo died, I wanted to remember him, so..." he shrugged slightly. "After that, I was in charge of all the kids. Took care of them for a while. Then we sort of... stumbled..." his lips quirked upwards in a wry smile, "into a better situation. We got taken in at a church. Father Maxwell ran it, along with Sister Helen. It was called Maxwell Church."  
  
Julia had a good idea where this was going, given how he'd gotten his first name, but that didn't completely explain the unsettled feeling she had. Something about that little smile... she couldn't figure out what it was, and Daddy was continuing his story.  
  
"I liked it there. Things were tight, but the Father and Sister were good people. They always had orphans coming through, with not enough money for everyone, but they managed somehow. They tried to place everyone in foster homes, but I just wasn't cut out for that sort of thing. I stayed with them for a long time, a couple of years, I guess." A small smile had appeared on his face at that point, but it disappeared at his next words, "Yeah, it was great, while it lasted."  
  
"What happened?" Julia asked after several seconds of silence.  
  
"The Rebels happened. The Alliance happened. The war happened." Daddy took a deep breath. "Rebels on the run from the Alliance took refuge inside the Church. We helped take care of the wounded, but they wanted more... and the Father wouldn't give it to them. He refused to take sides. They threatened him, and Sister Helen, and the kids that were there. I... I offered to go steal a mobile suit for them, if they'd leave us alone."  
  
"You what?!"  
  
"Offered to steal a mobile suit for them. They said that they needed one, and I wanted them to leave Father Maxwell and Sister Helen alone."  
  
"How old were you?"  
  
"I'm not sure, eight or nine, I guess."  
  
"You were eight or nine and you were going to try to steal a mobile suit?" she asked, shocked. That just didn't make any sense. "Wait a second, how old were you when you were taking care of those kids? You said that you were taking care of them for a while..."  
  
He shrugged again. "I don't know, six or seven sounds about right."  
  
"But... that... How could... um... how could you expect to steal a mobile suit if you were only eight?"  
  
"I couldda been nine," he pointed out with a short laugh that was only a shadow of his normal attitude. "And genius knows no age limit." The uneasy feeling in her gut was getting bigger. "Julia, I did a lot of stuff to keep us alive, including some things that weren't so good. Stealing was among those things. When the Rebels arrived, it seemed like the natural response to me, to offer to steal it. That was the way things worked there." He watched her carefully, waiting for some kind of response.   
  
Julia swallowed and tried to ignore the image of her father struggling to survive on the streets, stealing in order to live... and then offering to steal a mobile suit when he was only nine... things like that just weren't supposed to happen to people you knew... and the story wasn't over yet. Julia knew without asking that the worst was yet to come. "Then what happened?"  
  
"I grabbed the mobile suit, and I drove the truck back to the Church," he said, his eyes distant. "There wasn't anything left. The Alliance had discovered where the Rebels were hiding and with their usual efficiency they bombed the church into the ground. There was nothing left. Two hundred and forty-five people died there, mostly kids I'd brought in along with the Father and Sister Helen. And the Rebels, of course," he added bitterly. "I got back just in time for Sister Helen to die in my arms. She blessed me with her last words," he added, a dark edge in his voice. "Alliance caught me there, wasted too much time checking bodies," he said in an off-hand tone that horrified her. How could he act that way? Had he seen that much death that checking bodies was another 'natural' step for him?  
  
"Anyway, after that I started calling myself Duo Maxwell. It's my name, and it was also a way of remembering... a part of me died that day. I don't know if Father Maxwell and Sister Helen would have approved of what I became, but I didn't feel like I had any other choice, everything else had been taken from me. I lived... a very long time where the only thing keeping me going was getting revenge on the Alliance. I just..."  
  
Julia suddenly lost track of what he was saying as his last words impacted on her. :The only thing keeping him going was getting back at the Alliance... And he said that something died, that there was nothing left for him... nothing to loose. And 02 danced into battle, threw himself at them, had a very personal reason... and his fighting style was so familiar... and Daddy knows how to fight, but he won't tell me where or how... and the guns...:  
  
Julia stood up and backed away from the bed, staring at her father as if she'd never seen him before. "It... it can't be!" she stammered. He just stared back at her with an expression she'd never seen before, with eyes that looked far too old. God, he looked positively ancient when he looked at her like that. She was dimly aware of Tousan getting up and walking to the door and shutting it firmly before repeating the process with the windows. He drew the shades, too, although it was still the middle of the night and pitch black out. She kept staring at Duo-daddy. The thought forming in her head couldn't be true, it was impossible... "You... you can't be..." she stammered, mentally scrambling for some reason that it couldn't be true. "You... you would have only been sixteen or seventeen, you couldn't be..." she trailed off, staring at her father. After several seconds, he finally responded.   
  
"Actually, we were fifteen."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Aaagh! I can't believe I finally got here. I'm sure that I had some very clever comments to make here about this section, but I'm not sure that anyone will care what I have to say after leaving you guys hanging like that. So sorry! (I feel especially bad since last time I sent something out someone commented on how glad they were that I didn't leave cliffhangers, and here I've done it.) Anyway, I am already working on the next section. Story's not anywhere near finished yet, though. I have at least three or four more sections to go, I think. And I'm babbling.  
  
Anyway, a few notes, now that I'm calm again (really). Sorry about the abrupt ending with Richard's section, but I couldn't think of any way that she could stay and have a conversation with him without it sounding absolutely ridiculous, so I didn't even try. In this last section, I did my best to stick to what was said in the Episode Zeros, but I'm not sure how I did. If I had any major inconsistencies, please let me know.  
  
So... :peaks out from behind computer screen: ...did I do OK?   
  
Marika :) 12/13/01 


	8. Part 8

Julia stared blankly at her father. "What?"  
  
"We weren't sixteen or seventeen during the war, we were fifteen," he explained calmly, as if they were discussing the weather.   
  
Julia wasn't entirely certain that he knew what she was thinking. "But..."  
  
"Bugged the hell out of the Ozzies," he continued in that same voice. "They could never stand it that they were getting their asses handed to them by a bunch of kids."  
  
It seemed odd, but Julia noted that this was the first time her father had willingly cursed in front of her. Then her brain actually caught up with that statement. "Ozzies?"  
  
"Oz soldiers," he clarified.  
  
"You... fought the Oz soldiers?"  
  
"Mm-hm."  
  
"You were a Gundam pilot?"  
  
"Yeah. We were."  
  
"We?!" she turned her gaze to Tousan, who nodded and then moved forward across the bed and wrapped his arms around Daddy, still watching her. Of course, he was the one who was working for the Preventers, apparently, and the one who was still sparring with her... :Of course, it all makes perfect sense,: she thought, sounding mildly hysterical even to her own ears. :Both of my parents are Gundam pilots.: She concentrated for a second, matching up what she knew about the pilots to her parents. "You're 01, aren't you?" she asked Tousan. "And you're 02," she said to her other father.   
  
"That's right."  
  
"And this is what you wanted to talk to me about earlier?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"Oh. I see. You know, you could have interrupted me for this," she said, her voice sounding perfectly calm. "I wouldn't have minded so much."  
  
"We... should have told you a long time ago," Daddy admitted. "I'm sorry. But it isn't something we really wanted to talk about, especially not with you."  
  
"Especially not with me?"  
  
"Julie, that wasn't... a great time for us. It isn't something that we wanted to expose you to, that side of us."  
  
  
"Oh."  
  
There was a short silence, then he asked, "Julie, are you all right?"  
  
"I don't know."  
  
"Fair enough."  
  
"I probably have a thousand questions, but I can't think of any right now."  
  
"OK."  
  
They were silent for a minute, then Julia suddenly asked, "How did you guys meet?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"You would never tell me. I always wanted to know how you guys met, but you always distracted me with something else. I assume it has something to do with this. So how did you meet?"  
  
Something odd passed between her fathers - two Gundam pilots - and they broke apart, Tousan heading for the closet and Daddy folding his legs up under him on the bed. "Funny story, that," Duo-daddy said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "I sort of... shot him..."  
  
"What?!"  
  
"I shot him."   
  
There was a muffled grunt from Tousan, who was still in the closet, but Julia missed it because of her shock. "What did he say?" she asked, berating herself for not paying attention.  
  
"Twice," Daddy repeated with a slight glare at Tousan.  
  
"You... shot him... twice?" Julia repeated slowly.   
  
"Yeah, but it wasn't my fault! I had to do it, he was trying to kill Relena Darlian! And I didn't aim to kill..."   
  
"Relena Darlian? You mean Foreign Minister Darlian?! Why were you trying to kill her?!"  
  
"She saw me," Tousan said unhelpfully, emerging from the closet with a metal box - about the size of a shoebox - with a lock on it.   
  
"What?"  
  
"She saw his face when he came out of the ocean after he crashed," Daddy clarified. "She could identify his face. Back then, that was more than enough reason to kill someone. Of course, all I saw was him about to shoot a helpless girl, so me, being the nice guy that I am, tried to stop him. Had to shoot him twice just to get him to drop the gun. Then she stepped in front of him and tried to protect him! Weird girl, but she's better now, I guess."  
  
"Oh. I see." Julia most emphatically did not see, but she couldn't think of anything else to say. The thought of Daddy shooting anyone was just strange, and the way he talked about the Foreign Minister, like he'd known her... Something else suddenly occurred to her. "You knew the other pilots! You know who they were!"  
  
"Yeah," Daddy ducked his head slightly, avoiding her eyes. "So do you."  
  
:So do I?!: Julia immediately began sorting through information. There were five of them, two had been accounted for. They were all going to be around her fathers' ages... three of them... :It can't be.: "Wufei?" she guessed hesitantly, and got a nod. "And Trowa?" Another nod. "And... it can't be Quatre," she said, shaking her head as she pictured her other uncle.   
  
Daddy frowned slightly. "Now how come he always gets that reaction when people find out? When they find out about me and Deathscythe, it's like, 'Oh, I should have seen it coming,' but when they find out about him, it's like..."  
  
"Deathscythe?" Julia cut him off, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Maybe then she could figure out how *Quatre* could possibly be a Gundam pilot. He was just too... nice.  
  
"Oh, that's right, you wouldn't know about that," Daddy said with a tilt of his head. "All of the Gundams had names, based on some of their features, along with... other stuff. My Gundam was Deathscythe, his was Wing," he said, jerking his head towards Tousan, who nodded slightly.   
  
"Oh." Julia closed her eyes. :Deathscythe. Why am I not surprised?: Well, she knew the answer to that one: she wasn't surprised because it fit what she knew about the pilot of 02... who was her father. She opened her eyes and thought about what they had been talking about. "Quatre... he was 04... ah..."  
  
"Sandrock," Daddy said helpfully.   
  
"Sandrock," Julia repeated. "That was Quatre, right?" She got another nod. "But... what happened in space? With the second... ah... Wing, when it destroyed the colony..."  
  
Her parents exchanged a glance. "Here," Tousan said, thrusting the box at her. She now saw that there was a card on top of it - the key for the lock.  
  
"What is this?" she asked, taking the card and sliding it through the electronic lock. She opened the top of the box, half-expecting to see another gun, but instead, there were over a dozen computer discs, each in it's own holder and carefully labeled with some dates and numbers.  
  
"Mission logs," Tousan told her. "From the war, and our own notes from the Mariemaia incident. Our own reports, and the recordings from the Gundams of our battle data. This should answer most of your questions, if you want. If you have any more questions, we will answer them."  
  
"This... these cover the entire war?" Julia asked slowly, picking up the top one and turning it over in her hands.  
  
"They're organized chronologically, the ones marked 01 are mine, 02 are Duo's."  
  
Julia nodded slightly. "I see. Thank you." She put the disc back, then stood up and carried the box back to her room. She turned on the light, turned the computer screen back on, inserted the first disk labeled 01, and started watching.  
  
  
---------  
  
  
It actually started just a few minutes before the Gundams were launched, with an old man with prosthetic eyes standing in front of the open cockpit, telling the occupant that he needed a code name for the mission, and telling him that he would be Heero Yuy, named for the assassinated pacifist leader. :But... if that was his code name... why is he still using it? What's his real name?:   
  
Julia quickly made note of the questions and set them aside as the mission began in earnest, watching with a mix of awe and horror as Gundam 01 - Wing - blasted through several mobile suits before crashing into the ocean. She saw a figure in a space suit complete with helmet pop the hatch and swim out into the darkness right before the water rushed in and everything went black.   
  
The screen brightened again, and Julia stared. It was her Tousan... but at the same time it wasn't. He was just a kid, younger than her even. There was nothing childlike about the expression on his face, however. He stared calmly at the camera for several seconds, his hands moving around, flipping buttons and typing at one of the numerous keyboards in the cockpit. After those several seconds he started talking in a dull, unemotional voice, identifying himself as pilot 01, codename Heero Yuy. His eyes then roamed around the cockpit, checking sensors and dials as he relayed the events that had led to him recovering the Gundam. He reported that he had 'made contact with pilot 02' and had already had 'severe difficulties'. Then came a list of the damages that the Gundam had suffered in the fight with the mobile suits, the crash into the water, and most importantly, from his own attempt to destroy it. He then reported that he had plans to 'remove the necessary parts from Gundam 02' and repair his own Gundam. Then he started listing the damage he had taken in swimming to the surface (what amounted to a severe case of decompression sickness), getting shot by pilot 02 and then jumping off a boat as he launched some missiles (two gunshot wounds, one in the upper arm and one in the thigh, aggravated by the fall and the salt water, as well as a number of contusions and bruises, also from the fall), and finally when he jumped out of the hospital and didn't bother to open his parachute (several broken bones, one of which required setting and a makeshift splint, the rest were minor enough to be ignored, a few strained and torn muscles, and yet more bruising, all of which could be ignored).   
  
Julia stopped the recording and stood up, pacing across her room. She'd expected this sort of attitude from pilot 01, but expecting it and seeing it were two completely different things. Seeing it on her Tousan's face was worse. Listening to him report the events that had happened to him in that unemotional voice was bad enough, but when he started listing his injuries the same way that he listed the damage to the Gundam... it was like he didn't think he was anything more than a machine!   
  
:You knew he was like that,: she reminded herself. She'd built his personality in her mind, and she had known that he was like that. But this was her father now, and that was different. It shouldn't have, objectively, but she was having some difficulty remaining objective at this point. This was her father they were talking about! She wanted to know who had taught him to think that way, and she wanted to hunt them down and hurt them very badly.   
  
Julia stopped pacing and looked back at the frozen face of Gundam pilot 01. :Maybe not,: she thought, quickly taking back her last thoughts. She didn't really want to hurt anyone, although she didn't know what she'd do if she ever came face-to-face with whoever had done that to him. But she didn't want to hurt anyone, not really. Not when she was sitting here facing the screen, looking at her father describing how he'd survived falling out of a building after being shot. They had actually done what she'd just thought of: they'd hurt people, a lot of people. They were the ones who had blinded Richard, who had killed Mrs. Kinley's brother, who had done all of the things that caused them to be labeled as terrorists.   
  
Julia wanted very badly to take the disc out of the computer and smash it. Her parents would still tell her the story, if she asked them. But they'd given her an opportunity to see them as they had actually been, without them sugarcoating it at all. Because she knew, no matter how much they tried, they would end up sugarcoating it for her, making it less immediate, avoiding talking about the most painful memories. And she would let them get away with it, because she wouldn't want to upset them any more than they already were. She'd never get the entire story, not really.   
  
Julia sat back down at the computer and started the recording again. The pilot continued listing technical data for a while, but very shortly she could dimly hear yelling from somewhere outside the cockpit. Despite herself, Julia smiled as she recognized her other father's voice, then saw Tousan turn and shout at him to shut up. Then there was a beep and Tousan looked down and to the left of the screen. His eyes flicked back and forth several times as he read something, then he explained to someone off-screen that he had a mission to destroy an ore shipment later that day. "Nimou ryoukai," he said directly into the camera, just before turning it off.   
  
Reaching out, she stopped the recording before it could start up again. After a moment of thought, she pulled the disc out of the computer, and inserted the first disc for pilot 02. This tape started with his insertion onto the planet, which went much more smoothly than 01's. For him, the fighting didn't start until after he'd reached Earth, when he attacked an Alliance outpost. Unlike Tousan, who mostly kept silent except for grunts of effort every now and then, Daddy talked almost constantly as he fought - to himself, to his enemies, to his Gundam... the only times he stopped talking were when he took an especially bad hit that knocked the wind out of him.   
  
Eventually, several minutes into the battle, he stopped just shouting and yelling at the enemy soldiers long enough to say, "This is Duo. Primary mission completed. Now I might as well play around with these guys for a bit longer." There was a dark light in his eyes that was terrifying, to say the least. :Play around with them? He's talking about killing them!: a part of her mind protested. Well, what did she expect from a Gundam pilot? He was getting revenge for his family... And how was that different from his primary mission, which appeared to be blowing up yet more people and suits?   
  
Julia froze as something else occurred to her. :Revenge... all of the pilots were captured at one point or another... OZ hated them, what did they do when they had them as prisoners...: Julia knew, far better than she should, what OZ did to its prisoners, when they had information they needed. The thought of someone doing that to either of her parents was enough to make her almost physically ill.   
  
A short silence in the video caught her attention, and when she looked back, the Gundam was in a new place, fighting what looked like an underwater battle. She blinked as the Gundam produced it's scythe weapon and started slashing through the submarines and mobile suits that were running around down there. Julia's eyes widened. :How the hell can he be using a energy weapon underwater like that?!: That went against everything she'd ever read on the way energy weapons worked, it went against all the physics she knew! How in the universe had he done it?!   
It suddenly occurred to her that she could ask him, herself. This wasn't like her other research, it wasn't like looking through OZ's old files or through the public records. She was looking at the records of the Gundam pilots themselves. She could ask them any questions she wanted... and expect to get the answers. Because the Gundam pilots were her fathers. :I don't think that's really sunk in yet.: Suddenly the fighting drifted near what had only been an indistinct shape before, but was suddenly revealed to be Gundam 01... Wing. Then they drifted away again, and after a few minutes, the fighting ended.  
  
After the shouting, the shooting, and the screams of the other pilots, it seemed unnaturally quiet after the fight. Daddy... pilot 02 was sitting in the cockpit, hair hanging in his eyes as he checked a bunch of readings before hitting a bunch of buttons. In a few seconds it became obvious that he'd shut down most of the systems as the cockpit dimmed around him, leaving him mostly in darkness. He sat there silently for over a minute, just breathing in and out. Julia thought she could see him shaking slightly. After a few minutes had passed, he suddenly straightened upwards, tossing his bangs out of his face, and he grinned at the camera for a second before he turned it off.  
  
There was a short blank period, then he reappeared, sitting in the cockpit with all  
of the panels dark, but with a light over his head illuminating his face. He looked distinctly irritated.  
  
"All right, let's get this over with," he muttered to himself. He looked up at the camera. "It's April 9, 195," he announced, sounding bored. "And it's me. I don't have to go through the whole spiel every time, do I? Anyway, mission completed successfully, and I've got a new Gundam too. Eliminated the enemy... blah, blah, blah, the battle records are on this disc, anyway. Recovered Gundam 01 from the ocean, but both it and Deathscythe took some damage." His eyes narrowed slightly as he said this, but quickly shook it off. "Yeah, yeah, I know you'll want some details. Seems like *someone* was afraid that it was going to fall into enemy hands, and that same someone is something of an overachiever. I'll give you a full report later, but I've got to get going now. Got a new mission - I've got to go check on him in the hospital. 01, that is. What happened, you ask? Well, it's a long story, and I promise I'll tell you later. As soon as I break him out of that military hospital." He paused for a second, looking thoughtful. "Anyhow, once I get him out of there, I'll bring him back here. Assuming he can still walk. He was in the water an awfully long time before they pulled him out." He grimaced again. "I probably could have said that better. This isn't making you any happier, I know, but hey, you'll live. So I'll be back in a couple of hours, assuming all goes well. And assuming I can manage not to shoot him again," he muttered to himself just before he turned off the camera.  
  
Julia quickly shut off the recording. How like her father to talk like that, to joke about serious things. Getting a confession that something had gone wrong with him was always like pulling teeth, getting one little piece of information out of him at a time. Like the time he was in a car accident, someone slammed into him from behind. He managed to get out of it with nothing more than a mildly sprained wrist from where he braced himself against the dashboard and a slight cut on his head, but that didn't stop him from trying to avoid having to tell them. First he called them to ask them for a ride home (without saying why). When they asked, he said that he couldn't take his car. Then he told them that the tire had gone flat, which was entirely true, just not the whole truth, that the entire back half of the car had been smashed in. It took them almost ten minutes to find out that he'd been in an accident, and was waiting for them by the wreck of his car.  
  
A painful smile appeared on her face as she remembered the incident. How like her father... and how unlike him too, that darkness, the edge in his voice that she could clearly hear, no matter how he tried to hide it. And the pain... was it still in his eyes now, almost twenty years later, or was she just imagining it now that she searched her memory?  
  
How had she described 02 before? Driven, incredibly so, by some dark memory of his past. Well, now she knew why that was, and it was worse then she could have possibly imagined. He danced into battles, killed everyone who saw him without hesitation... a killer. Her father.  
  
Julia swallowed, set her shoulders, and started up the recording again.  
  
  
---------  
  
  
After almost ten hours, Julia decided to take a break. She glanced at the clock on the wall... it was past one. She hadn't eaten since the snack the night before, and she hadn't eaten a real meal since breakfast yesterday. She was missing school. It seemed incongruous that she should notice that now, but this was the first day in her entire life that she'd cut school. It was the first day in quite a few years that she had been absent at all - she didn't get sick very often. When she was little, she used to miss school all the time, because of the headaches, but ever since they'd gone away, she almost never missed school. Well, she was missing it now. There was no way she was going to go into school to sit and listen to the teachers talk about things she herself could teach - in her sleep - while these discs waited for her at home.   
  
There was no sign of either of her parents as she walked down the stairs to get herself something to eat. They hadn't gone to work, either, she could still hear two heartbeats coming from somewhere in the house. So they were avoiding her. That was fine with her, she wasn't sure yet if she was mad at them for not telling her earlier. She understood their hesitation, and on some level, deep down where she refused to acknowledge it, she wished that they hadn't told her, that they'd made up some kind lie.   
  
No, that wasn't true, she would have seen through a lie, and even if she hadn't, she needed the truth. Hadn't she said so just a few hours ago? They were dredging up old, obviously painful memories for her...  
  
Julia quickly finished eating, and headed back upstairs. In seconds she was back into the world her fathers had lived in for over a year.   
  
At around six, she took another break, this one for a short nap. She could go for a long time without sleep, but her sleep schedule had been off already, and she'd only gotten a couple hours of sleep after they got back from the colony. Then last night she'd only gotten three hours of sleep before Duo woke her up... she thought, startled. Since when did she call her father by his first name?  
  
:Since he stopped just being my dad and started being a Gundam pilot as well.: The answer appeared in her mind almost the second the question was asked. She was seeing them for the first time, not as her fathers, but as the people that they had been.   
  
:And still are, to a degree.: Another unwanted thought popped into her mind against her will. She'd seen enough of Heero ... Tousan to realize that there was something seriously wrong with the way he thought back then, with the way he was brought up. It went beyond just having a bad childhood (Duo probably had cornered the market on that particular problem), it was even in the way he processed his thoughts, as far as she could tell. He seemed to be fundamentally incapable of placing himself before the mission - he wasn't just well-trained, he was... machinelike. She'd seen it before, but she hadn't realized how deep the training was buried. It was still with him. Now that she knew what to look for, she remembered one time when a car had let out a loud 'pop!' when it passed the house, and she'd seen him tense and drop partially to the ground, one hand going behind his back, before he'd stopped himself. She hadn't known it at the time, but she knew what it was now. He'd thought it was a gunshot, and had been going for his own gun.   
  
There were other, smaller things that seemed to be built into his subconscious, things that he wasn't even aware of, things that she was noticing now. He always sat with his back to the wall; even when they went to restaurants, he always requested a table by the wall, so that he could see the entire room. His obsession with keeping things clean might be a part of it as well, and probably his hatred of formal clothing. :And let us not forget the two guns in the attic,: she thought wryly. Julia didn't have any specific evidence to support this (although *that* was just a matter of time until she had time to look up guns), but she just knew that both of them were in working order. All that had to be done was to place the cartridges in the guns, and they would be ready to fire, no matter how long it had been since they'd last been used. She suspected that neither of her parents would ever let their weapons fall into disrepair.  
  
Julia shook herself slightly, trying to drag her mind out of the patterns it had fallen into. This was not going to help her get the sleep she needed to continue. She needed to keep her mind off of these thoughts until after she was asleep...  
  
And, of course, that led her mind to things that would not help her sleep, like remembering when Heero had tried to kill himself. She remembered the utter shock she'd felt when Une handed over the ultimatum: surrender or she'd destroy the colonies, and when the old man with the weird glasses suddenly appeared on Wing's screens... she'd known, instantly, what he meant when he said that, *he* surrendered, but not the Gundams, but it had taken her several seconds to get her brain to actually accept that information. In that time Heero had popped the hatch and stepped out onto the small platform the shielding created, holding the small detonator in one hand. Then, without hesitating, he held it out in front of him... and activated it.  
  
There had been an odd humming noise in the cockpit, swiftly rising in pitch as the engines quickly worked themselves to overloading. Then the picture went dark.   
  
Despite the fact that Julia knew that he had in fact survived, knew it beyond a doubt, that hadn't kept her heart from jumping up into her mouth for a few seconds, and it hadn't stopped her from scrambling for Duo's disc for that same time period, to see the event from his perspective.  
  
It wasn't any better from the outside. She heard Duo let out an anguished cry - even though this was long before they had anything that could be considered a formal (or informal) relationship, her Daddy obviously already cared for him. She heard Quatre whimpering. It sounded very loud, somehow.   
  
With a nearly audible grunt, Julia tore herself away from the image playing over and over again in her mind. That moment of silence, then the bright light...  
  
She shuddered, and then shut off the light. She needed some sleep. She just hoped that she'd get it.  
  
  
---------  
  
  
Well, she ended up getting the sleep, although it was mostly one long string of nightmares that left her feeling little refreshed. Despite that, she immediately plunged back into the files, working until hunger began to gnaw at her stomach again.   
  
Julia kept going until she had finished all of the files, stopping to eat and rest whenever she needed to, for almost three days. There were over fifty hours of material to go through, not counting time needed for sleeping or eating.  
  
Eventually, she did it. Julia made her way through over a year of Heero coldly completing his missions, of Duo's near-hysterical yelling as he killed enemy soldiers. She had a number of questions to ask them, and even more questions to ask herself. But she wanted the whole story before she did that. She glanced at the clock. It was two in the afternoon. Neither of her parents had been to work in three days. She got up and walked to their room. She knocked once and then entered.  
  
Both of her parents were there, Duo was reading a very thick book that looked old, and Heero was typing away on his laptop. They both stopped what they were doing when she entered. There was a moment of awkward silence, then Duo asked, "Made it through them already?" She nodded. "You made good time," he commented lightly.   
  
No one smiled. Finally Julia said, "I have a few questions to ask."   
  
"Shoot," Duo said, then grimaced as she involuntarily winced at the reminder. "I mean..."  
  
"No, it's OK," she replied. "It's... never mind." She looked at Heero. "Who raised you?"  
  
He blinked once, then responded. "I was originally raised by Odin Lowe. He was an assassin. He trained me to help him. He was killed when a mission went bad, and Dr. J somehow found out about me and had me brought to him. Then he trained me to be a soldier, to fight for him." His voice was perfectly emotionless, without any hint of inflection at all, but his shoulders were tense, and his right hand was opening and closing, as if he was missing holding something. Like a gun.  
  
"You hate him?"  
  
Duo moved closer to Heero, and put one hand on his arm, and Heero made a visible effort to relax. "Yes."  
  
"He... did things to you, didn't he?"  
  
"Yes. It was considered necessary for my training."  
  
"By who? The old man... J?"  
  
"Him, and others. Dekim Barton was in charge."  
  
"And that... was your entire childhood? Just training and..." she couldn't think of the right word to describe it. "More training?"  
  
"Hai."  
  
"And... what about your name?"   
  
"What about it?"  
  
"In the beginning, he said it was your code name. Why are you still using it?"  
  
"It's my name. Now."   
  
"But... it was your code name. What was your real name?"   
  
He shrugged slightly. "I never had one. Odin called me 'Junior' most of the time, or used whatever name we were using for a job. J just called me boy, or 01."  
  
"So Heero Yuy... was the first real name you had?"  
  
"It was a code name, but I had it for a long time, and it was the name that those closest to me called me by, so I kept it after the war. It's the same for Trowa."   
  
"I ran across a man named Trowa Barton when I was doing the research," Julia said thoughtfully. "Dekim Barton's son. I thought the fact that Trowa has the same was just a coincidence."  
  
"He was supposed to be one of us. Something happened, and he ended up dead. You'd have to ask Trowa for the whole story," Duo elaborated. "All I know is that Trowa took his name to hide the fact that the real Barton was dead. And he kept it after the war."  
  
"Oh, I see," Julia said slowly, wondering how Trowa had grown up so that he didn't have a name. Even Duo had given himself a name.  
  
They waited silently for several minutes, while Julia collected her thoughts. Then she asked, "What was the ZERO system? It's mentioned over and over again, and... it did things... but you never said exactly what it was."  
  
She was watching carefully, so she didn't miss it when Duo's face went absolutely white, or when Heero tensed again. "That is a hard question to answer. It was intended to be a combat system, to enhance pilot performance. The system took data about battles and fed it directly into the pilot's mind. It cut down on response time dramatically, and increased suit responsiveness as well. But it was more than that," Duo shuddered.  
  
"More than that?" Julia asked.  
  
"It was supposed to show you your enemies, but it didn't do just that. It twisted things around in your head, made you see things that weren't there. It put our abilities literally off the charts, but you never knew what, exactly, you were fighting. When Quatre saw the colonies kill his father, it pushed him towards the edge, and when he got on the ZERO system, it identified the colonies as his enemies."  
  
"And he destroyed his enemies," Julia said slowly. "But... didn't he know what he was doing..."  
  
"I saw myself destroy a colony, when I was in that damn thing," Duo said in a harsh whisper. He stared into space for several seconds before shaking his own head, shaking off the memory the same way she did. "Heero and Quatre were the only ones who ever mastered it, who could use it and keep it from controlling them."   
  
"Why them?"  
  
"Who knows?" Duo asked with a shrug. "Maybe the training did do some good, or maybe it was just random. I know I never wanted touch that thing again."   
  
  
---------  
  
  
Over an hour passed before they finished answering Julia's questions. Duo did his best not to get lost in his memories of the past, and to answer her questions as simply and concisely as he could, but it wasn't easy. Not when she was asking questions like, "What is the ZERO system?" and "Did you ever find out how your communications were compromised so that Treize started manipulating your orders?" and even worse, "According to the readings, you were both pushing your bodies far beyond normal human limits, how is that possible?"  
  
Finally, she had her answers - or at least enough answers to occupy her mind for the time being. She stood up quietly and said that she needed some time to think about it, and that she'd be back before dinner tonight.   
  
They sat silently for several minutes, then Duo finally said, "That went well, I think."  
  
"Hn."  
  
"It's not over, you know."  
  
Heero turned a look on him that probably would have had Oz soldiers running for their lives back during the war. But Duo had lived with him for a long time now, and was mostly immune. "I know you don't want to hear this, but now that she knows about us, we're going to have to tell her about herself soon."  
  
"Give her some time to adjust to this," Heero suggested quietly, with unusual (for him) sensitivity. "Then we'll tell her."  
  
Duo was silent for a few minutes, thinking it over. "She was calling us by our first names, instead of calling us 'Dad'."  
  
"Aa."  
  
"What do you think she's thinking?"  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Well, there's another section out. Not crazy about the section in the middle, but I had a good time writing the sections with Heero and Duo. I still haven't decided how I'm going to refer to them in the next few chapters, but I do know that the tone of the story is going to shift slightly. Before the focus was on her finding out her *parents'* secrets, not her own. Now the focus has shifted, and she's not aware that there's anything more to find, which will make a big difference. Her determination has been driving her for a while now, and now she's lost that drive. Going to change things. I think the problem with the middle is that she's mostly in shock, so her responses to things aren't as interesting as they could be.  
Marika 1/6/02 


	9. Part 9a

Julia hit the streets, wandering around aimlessly, trying to clear her mind. :It's too much, too fast.: To learn that her fathers had committed those atrocities...  
  
:And what about OZ? What about the Alliance? Were the atrocities they committed any less horrible?: Julia demanded. She wasn't sure who, exactly, she was talking to. Herself, probably. :Great, now I'm talking to myself. Just what I needed. I'm losing my mind.:  
  
Sighing, she glanced up at the sky as she heard a plane passing overhead, then just as quickly averted her eyes as they protested looking anywhere near a source of light. :Shit, not now,: she thought, recognizing the signs that one (or more) of her senses was about to go crazy. It was so familiar at this point that she was more irritated than frightened, although she did immediately begin to look around for a store that she could duck into, preferably a poorly illuminated one.   
  
The pain in her eyes grew worse, and her vision began to white out as she hurried down the street. Shielding her eyes with her hands, Julia picked a door at random and stepped inside. She got lucky, it was a dimly lit store. By the time she got inside, Julia's eyes were almost completely useless, so she kept them closed for a full minute after she stepped into the store, willing them to return to normal.   
  
"Mam?" asked a concerned voice to her right. At least her hearing hadn't gone crazy, too. "Are you all right?"  
  
"I just have something in my eyes," she lied. "I'll be fine in a minute."  
  
"Would you like to sit down?"   
  
"Thank you," Julia replied, and felt him take her arm. She let him guide her to a seat at sat down. Already the whiteness was beginning to fade, but it had her worried. She didn't usually actually lose her vision when this happened, she usually just closed her eyes until it went away, but she'd definitely lost it before she closed her eyes this time. What if this was a sign that something was getting worse? What if she went completely blind at some point? The thought terrified her. Despite what she'd seen Richard accomplish, she didn't want to have to deal with the limitations that he had.   
  
Should she tell her parents? Tousan had said to tell him if it didn't go away. She'd thought that it had, after the break, but maybe it had just gone away for a little while, and now it was getting worse again.   
  
What could they do about it? They didn't know who her parents were, most likely they were just casualties of the war at some point, but maybe they'd had some sort of disease that had killed one or both of them. Maybe she had inherited... whatever was wrong with her... from them. What could her parents do about it?  
  
:They're Gundam pilots, they'll figure something out.: The thought popped into her mind. Then she realized what she'd just thought and buried her face in her hands. :I've got to figure out what I think about this, or I am going to go crazy.:  
  
"Mam?" the voice asked again, and she looked up. The owner of the voice was a neat-looking fifty-something year-old, with a round face, round glasses, and a comb-over. He was wearing a white shirt and a brownish vest, and looked bookish. "Are you feeling better, or would you like me to call someone?"  
  
"I'm much better now, thank you," she replied automatically, remembering to smile at the last second. She looked around the store, seeing her original impression of the man carried out in the fact that this was a used bookstore. It was also nice and quiet, with few other people. "Do you mind if I look around a little?" she asked. That would give her some more time to think, and to make sure that her senses didn't go crazy again before she headed back outside.   
  
"Oh, of course not!" he exclaimed, and she could practically see him switching gears from 'concerned bystander' to 'business owner.' "Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help you."   
  
"I will." She nodded, smiling at the sudden transformation, and moved into one of the aisles, examining the titles. After a few minutes, she realized that it wasn't so much a used book store as an antique book store. Some of these things were ancient, they were from centuries before the colony-era began.   
  
:The colony-era...: That thought brought her back to the problem that had originally driven her outside and had ended up with her being here. For the first time since she'd found out, Julia felt as if her mind had cleared enough for her thoughts to flow coherently. The shock must finally be wearing off.   
  
:All right, if my brain is functioning again, then we can work through this logically,: Julia told herself. :Start from the beginning. My parents are both Gundam pilots. They killed a lot of people during the war in various ways. A lot of people tried to kill them. They both went through some very horrible stuff when they were very young. And they were both engineered to be something a little more than human so that they *could* fly Gundams.:  
  
Julia paused and evaluated that last thought-stream. Yes, that fairly well summed-up what she knew. That was an extreme oversimplification of the situation, but it pretty much covered the important parts. :All right. I knew most of this beforehand. I knew that the Gundam pilots killed lots of people, I knew that lots of people tried to kill them. I guessed that something awful must have happened to them. I didn't know how young they were, but that's not the issue here. And I did guess know that the Gundam pilots were reported as being 'not human.' I know what the Alliance did to the colonies. I was even thinking that they did the right thing, sort of,: she added, grimacing as she remembered the confrontation with Richard. :So what's the problem?:  
  
The answer occurred to her almost as soon as she asked the question. It was because they were her fathers. The same people who'd taken care of her when she was a baby, taught her to walk and talk, dried her tears when she used to have those headaches when she was little. They still took care of her, giving her advice when she needed it, helping her keep her mind occupied when she was bored... and teaching her how to fight. Now that she looked back, Julia was startled to realize exactly how much of what they'd taught her had been things that they must have learned during their training, or during the war itself. Then again, was that so surprising? It wasn't as if either of them had ever had a formal education, or gone to college. They were both geniuses, they must have been to survive the war, but they just taught her what they knew best...   
  
:Which was war.: Julia grimaced. The sheer *number* of things they knew was astonishing, and she was sure she'd only seen a little of what they were capable of, but that didn't change the fact that it was her parents she'd been studying all these months, trying to figure out why they *killed*. Her otousan and daddy. At some basic level she just couldn't accept the fact that her parents were killers.   
  
But... Julia couldn't help remembering the darkness that had been in her daddy's eyes as he described what had happened to him on L2. His eyes had looked so old. She'd seen that same look, over and over again, on the recordings, when he killed the enemy. No matter how he grinned and joked about it, no one would ever convince her that he'd enjoyed killing them, not really. Not when his eyes looked like that.  
  
And even more telling was her parents' reaction when she first told them that she was studying the Gundam pilots, when she told them about Richard, and when they finally told her the truth. The strange looks, the glances they exchanged, the ones she had correctly identified as guilty, even if she'd dismissed her own observations at the time. :That'll teach me to underestimate myself,: she thought with dark humor.   
  
But there was the heart of the matter. She couldn't picture her parents killing people, but she'd seen them feeling guilty because of the people they'd killed. This wasn't any misplaced guilt because they'd seen someone killed when they were kids, it was because *they'd* been the ones killing people.   
  
Julia leaned against one of the bookshelves, closing her eyes, but the image of her daddy staring at her with those ancient eyes seemed to be burned into her retinas. Her daddy, with those ancient eyes. Her otousan, with behavior patterns from the war that were so ingrained that she couldn't imagine what he'd be like without them. Her fathers.   
  
She wasn't sure exactly how long she just stood there, staring into space, trying to get used to the idea. Her fathers. Gundam pilots. It wasn't as impossible as she'd thought. It wasn't *easy*, but it wasn't impossible, either. The clues had been there, and besides, they were her fathers. She loved them, and what was she going to do, go on being irritated with them for not telling her this for the rest of her life? She could even understand, a little, why they hadn't wanted to tell her. But they had told her, hadn't tried to conceal it from her, once she asked them straight-out instead of avoiding it. Julia smiled slightly as she realized that Daddy had somehow managed to conceal this from her for as long as he had without breaking his customary no-lying rule.   
  
:I need to talk to them.: They had to be not very happy right now. She remembered Tousan telling her that he loved her, at a very odd moment, several weeks ago, and now it was obvious that he was worried that wouldn't be the case after she found out the truth. And, of course, the first thing she did after finding out was to go into shock and then run off without telling them anything. They had to be feeling pretty miserable right now. Julia felt more than a little guilty.  
  
Well, in her defense, it *was* a shock. But she must have hurt them with her reaction, which was exactly the opposite of what she'd wanted to do. She'd wanted to *stop* hurting them. And that started now.   
  
Julia turned, about to go home, when a title caught her eye. She paused and carefully pulled the old book off the shelf. It was in remarkably good shape, considering it had been out of print for well over a century. She opened the first page to make sure that the inside of the book matched the outside. It did, and she smiled. She'd first read "Stranger in a Strange Land" when she was nine, just after she'd finally gotten over the worst of the headaches. Of course, she'd read it off a disc, since hardcopies of the book were almost impossible to find, but it had struck something deep within her at the time. Maybe it was just because she'd been feeling so isolated from everyone around her (except her parents), between her intelligence and the headaches that kept her out of most of the activities her classmates enjoyed. For whatever the reason, the book had always held a special place in her heart. She'd been trying to get Daddy to read it for years now. She knew that he wasn't disappointing her on purpose, but he really preferred reading things that he could actually hold, instead of scrolling text off of a computer. Maybe if she got a hardcopy for him, he would finally read it. (1)  
  
Turning the book over, she dug into her pocket to see if she had enough money with her. Luckily, she'd automatically stuffed her wallet in her pants when she got up this morning, or else she probably would have left the house without any money at all. Sometimes her absent-mindedness terrified her. Checking, she saw that she had enough money, if barely, and walked to the front of the store. She quickly made the purchase, feeling more than a little guilty that she was buying a present for Daddy with money that he'd given her. That sort of defeated the purpose of buying presents, but she figured it was the thought that counted.   
  
Once she had the book, she stepped back outside, carefully shielding her eyes until she was certain that her eyesight wasn't about to go crazy anymore. Looking around, she realized she was only a few blocks from Richard's. She wondered whether it was habit or something else that had drawn her here. Julia stared down the street towards his home for a moment before shaking her head. There was no way she could tell him this. It was just too much. If *she'd* had as much difficulty accepting it as she had, what could she expect from him? She'd have to figure out something to tell him, and soon. The week was almost passed, and she had promised to visit him.  
  
But not now. Tucking her purchase up under an arm, Julia started back towards home.  
  
The hairs on the back of her neck prickled, and she paused, looking around. :What the hell was that?: she wondered, rubbing the back of her neck with a slight shudder. The only person in sight was well over a hundred meters away. She looked at him, then frowned.   
  
He was staring at her. The shudder became more pronounced as she realized the intensity with which he was studying her. And he *was* staring at her, there was no mistaking it, his eyes were a bunched up and watering with the effort of seeing her at this distance. Julia was seized by a sudden strong urge to get very far away from here right now. She didn't know whether he was just some kind of harmless pervert who just liked watching her, or if he would actually try to approach her, and she didn't want to find out. She turned and ran at a medium jog all the way back home.  
  
  
---------  
  
  
Julia had almost, but not quite, managed to convince herself that it had all been in her head by the time she got home. She was barely breathing hard, but paused for a moment on the threshold to compose herself. She didn't want to worry her parents. When she was certain that she looked completely normal, she pushed open the door. The house was quiet, but she concentrated, and heard two heartbeats in the kitchen.   
  
"Hello!" she called, making sure that she was giving them some warning. On the other hand, they probably knew she was coming. After all, they were the ones with the genetic enhancements. She hated to think what problems they must have had with their senses, after all the difficulties she'd had with hers.   
  
She walked directly into the kitchen. Tousan was at the stove, wearing an apron over his usual tank-top and jeans. That was what he'd worn during the war, too. At least he had given up on the spandex shorts. Daddy was sitting at the kitchen table with a large pile of mail in front of him and an irritated expression on his face. That expression disappeared as soon as he saw Julia. "Julie!" he exclaimed, jumping to his feet. Then his expression became guarded, and he slowly sat back down.   
  
That hurt. Julia walked over to her father and hesitantly held out the back containing the book. "Ah, here," she said, feeling incredibly stupid.  
  
He glanced at her, then down at the bag before taking it from her. He pulled the book out and his eyes widened slightly. "Where did you find..."  
  
"I ended up in an old book store. I thought maybe *now* you'd read it," she said sternly, putting both hands on her hips.  
  
He grimaced. "Sorry, I meant to read it, really I did..."  
  
"It's OK," she flung herself at him and nearly knocked him off his feet as she hugged him. He stiffened for a moment, then returned the gesture. "I'm sorry," she whispered as she clung to him.  
  
"Sorry? For what?" Daddy sounded genuinely confused.  
  
"For making you worry. I love both of you guys, you know that, right?" she asked, pulling back to study his face.   
  
He looked as though he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing. Tousan had the same non-expression as always, but Julia thought that she detected a bit of worry, mixed with hope, in his eyes. "You thought I'd stop loving you because you were Gundam pilots?" she asked.   
  
"Well, ah..."  
  
"You know, for a couple of geniuses, you can be pretty stupid sometimes," she scolded them. "I'm not going to stop loving you guys. Ever. Got that?" she asked, glancing over at Tousan to make sure he was absorbing this as well. He was still staring at her, although now there was a hint of a smile on his face. She gave Daddy another hug, then straightened up and moved over to the stove, giving Tousan a big hug, squeezing him as hard as she could.   
  
She stayed there for a solid minute, until he said, "The sauce will burn."  
  
Julia obediently let go, knowing that that was his way of asking for some space. He never was particularly comfortable with openly showing his feelings, which was why she'd been so surprised when he just started hugging her those weeks ago. Julia glanced at the pot and saw that he'd gone for traditional (depending on what country/colony you were originally from) and simple - spaghetti and meat sauce. She sniffed. "Smells great, Tousan." Maybe she was laying on 'normal' a bit thick, but her parents could be thick-headed sometimes, and she wanted to make sure she got her point across.   
  
"Julie, honey... are you OK with this?" Daddy asked worriedly.   
  
"It's still a little weird," Julia admitted. "And I think it's going to take some getting used to, but I'll live. It was just the shock, before. I do agree, sort of, with what you did, did you know that?"  
  
"What?!"  
  
"Richard and I had a... well, it wasn't exactly an argument, but... it was a disagreement," Julia finally said. "Before vacation. Because I wouldn't outright condemn the Gundam... I mean you guys," she corrected herself. "Because I told him that there was a reason. I showed him everything I'd found, and he agrees with me now," she added. "I'm not saying that I'm crazy about what you did, but... it might have been necessary."  
  
"There should have been a better way," Daddy said softly, his eyes gone flat again. "There was, but we kept destroying the chance every time it came. First Heero Yuy, then the Alliance doves. Every time there was a better way, it got destroyed..." he shook his head slightly.  
  
"But that wasn't your fault," Julia said softly, knowing even as she spoke that there was nothing she could say to make her parents feel better, to lift some of the burden of the guilt off of them. They'd lived with this longer than she'd been alive. The thought was somewhat humbling, and she wished she could make them feel better. She didn't like the thought of her parents being unhappy, for any reason. "And something had to happen to help the colonies. And it did help."  
  
Daddy nodded, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that he was mostly humoring her. Julia shifted uncomfortably and decided to lighten the mood. "You know, you guys really screwed things up for me," she said casually, pulling one of the kitchen chairs next to Daddy's so she could lean against him as she talked.   
  
She felt him stiffen slightly before he asked, "What'd we do?"  
  
"I'm supposed to be doing this project on the Gundam pilots, and the main part of it was going to be me making up a pretend interview with the pilots, based on what I'd found out about them through the research. How the heck am I supposed to do a pretend interview now?"  
  
  
---------  
  
  
Julia hummed happily to herself as she walked towards aikido class. It had been over three weeks since she'd found out her parents' secret, and it almost felt like things were getting back to normal. It had been hard at first, trying to act normal when she finally went back school after getting back from vacation. None of her teachers had really bought the 'I didn't feel well' excuse, but it hardly mattered. They had no reason to complain unless she fell behind, and, as usual, she was way ahead in all of her classes. This entire experience was teaching her the wrong thing about not attending classes, since it apparently made no difference whether or not she attended school. Of course, she'd known that before, but to see it proven so thoroughly was a little depressing.  
  
After that first day of school she'd gone to visit Richard. She'd taken a page from her father's book and done her best not to lie while skirting the truth by a rather large margin. She felt very bad about lying to him (because as far as she was concerned, deceiving was the same thing as lying, no matter if a lie didn't actually pass your lips), but she didn't have a choice in the matter. This wasn't like showing him the research she'd done, this part wasn't public record (or what should be part of public record), and it wasn't like him finding out that she was a genius. This wasn't her secret to share, and even if it had been, she probably still wouldn't have told him. She wasn't sure if he'd be able to handle it or not, but it was just too big a chance to take. If he couldn't, and he told someone... there were a lot of OZ and Alliance soldiers still on Earth after the war, and Julia didn't want her parents to have to go into hiding, the way they had during the war.   
  
She didn't think he'd noticed anything.  
  
It wasn't easy, sometimes, trying to act like nothing had changed, now that she knew this secret that no one else did. And she'd nearly gotten in a shouting match with Mrs. Kinley during her first meeting after vacation, when her teacher started going on about the Gundam pilots again. Somehow it had been easier to brush off the derogatory comments when the Gundam pilots weren't her fathers and uncles. But now, knowing exactly why they'd done what they'd done, and knowing what sort of people they really were, it was nearly unbearable. She'd avoided yelling only by making an abrupt exit from Mrs. Kinley's office. Then she'd given herself a strong talking-to about self-control, gotten herself under control, and gone back in to apologize. Mrs. Kinley had accepted the apology with ill grace, and things had gone back to the uneasy state they'd been before.  
  
She was still working on her project. She was trying to write it the same way she'd originally planned, getting into the heads of the pilots and writing from their perspective. It was a little irritating, doing it that way, when she knew she had a couple of them living with her, but if she actually interviewed them, it wouldn't be her work. Better to turn in something that was slightly flawed but her own than to be dishonest. Besides, she knew that her parents still weren't completely comfortable with her knowing, and didn't really want to discuss it with her. So the project was progressing without any input on their part. At least they'd stopped tensing and exchanging those looks every time she mentioned it.  
  
It was strange, sometimes it was incredibly easy to act normal. Especially when she was around her parents. She didn't have to hide anything from them, and for the first time ever, they didn't have to hide anything from them. Other than that, nothing had changed, not really. They were the same people she'd known all her life, and she was still their daughter. It was easy to act normal under those circumstances.   
  
Julia was still a few blocks from the dojo when she noticed something was wrong. She actually stopped in the middle of the street, looking around, trying to figure out what was bothering her. The few other people on the street gave her some strange looks... at least, most of them did. One or two looked vaguely alarmed, and continued watching her long after everyone else had lost interest. Julia's stomach clenched.  
  
Clutching her bag very tightly, Julia hurried down the street towards the dojo. She didn't know exactly what was going on, but she had a very bad feeling about some of the people, and wanted to get to somewhere where she'd be surrounded by her friends, people she trusted. As she sped up, Julia noticed several people - the ones she'd noticed before - detaching themselves from the crowd to follow her slightly faster speed.  
  
Julia turned the corner and stepped onto the street where the dojo was with a feeling of relief. :Just another minute...: She stopped short as four largish men stepped directly in front of her, blocking her path. She turned to retreat back to the other street, where there were at least *some* other people, and found the way blocked by the three men who she'd spotted earlier. "What do you want?" she asked nervously, turning back to face the four in front of her, while keeping track of the ones behind her by their heartbeats. :Oh, that was brilliant,: her mind commented. :Why do you *think* they're surrounding a lone teenage girl?:  
  
"Are you Julia Maxwell-Yuy?" one of the men asked in a straightforward manner.   
  
Julia's heart jumped straight into her throat. :Why the hell do they know my name?!:  
  
"Who wants to know?" she asked in response, and was amazed when her voice was steady.   
  
The men in front of her exchanged a glance that she really didn't like the looks of, then the one who'd spoken said, "It's her. Take her."   
  
  
  
  
(1) - Sorry about this, but I couldn't resist throwing in a reference to this book. I happen to love it, and I reccommend it to anyone who likes science fiction of any kind.   
  
  
  
Sorry about this, but this chapter started being waaaay too long, so I just chopped it off. I'm almost done with the second part, it should be out in a few days. (Assuming all goes well, which may be too much to ask for.) Anyway, I'm not sure how well I handled the section where she was just sitting around thinking, but I liked the part with Heero and Duo. Julia's re-establishing her job as caretaker for her parents.   
The next section should be out in a few days.  
Marika 1/30/02 


	10. Part 9b

"It's her. Take her."   
  
Julia took an unconscious step backwards at the open malice on his face. She heard one of the heartbeats behind her grow closer, and suddenly one of them reached around in front of her, hooking his arm around her neck and bracing it with his other arm. He wasn't choking her, not yet, but he could very easily.  
  
Suddenly she caught a whiff of something very sweet, and saw the man who'd spoken before pulling something out of his pocket. It was a small plastic bag with a bit of white cloth in it. Grinning openly now, he looked at her and started walking over. As he reached her, he raised the cloth towards her face, and the smell got much stronger.  
  
"No..." Julia didn't know what was going on, but she knew she didn't want that thing pressed against her face. She had the strong suspicion that it was something that would knock her out or worse.  
  
She raised a hand, intending to just push her hand away, but her body hadn't forgotten the years of training, even if her mind wasn't functioning properly right now. Instead of just pushing his hand away, she grabbed the palm of his hand and pushed, forcing his wrist back to a ninety-degree angle, then even farther. The man instantly dropped to his knees in an attempt to keep her from breaking his wrist, and let out a low exclamation of pain. It was more from surprise than pain, she guessed, but he didn't sound happy.  
  
The arm across her throat tensed, and suddenly she found herself choking, gasping for breath. Acting entirely on instinct, she drove her left elbow into the gut of her attacker. The arm around her neck immediately loosened slightly as the guy bent over slightly, and she drew in a welcome breath of air. Before he could recover and tighten his hold again, Julia dropped to her knees, pulling him down with her, and then threw all of her energy forward, projecting outward. She ended up curled in a ball on the ground while the man flew over her head, landing heavily on the ground in front of her.  
  
:Well, he doesn't know how to fall,: the nonsensical thought passed through her mind as she saw him scrape his hands open on the concrete. Then she wondered if it was just her, or if everyone made inane observations when they were tense.   
  
Then she noticed that she was kneeling on the ground next to the guy who'd attempted to drug her.  
  
"You bitch!" he exclaimed, grabbing her right arm and hauling her towards him.   
  
Refusing to let him control her center, Julia pushed her hand to the ground, putting all of her weight on it, then using it as a pivot as she swung her body around and kicked him in the stomach as hard as she could. His eyes bulged and he attempted to curl his entire body around his stomach.  
  
Julia scrambled to her feet. The guy who'd grabbed her was already back on his feet, looking rather less than amused, and the other five were eyeing each other and her, as if they were trying to figure out who should attack her first. :I can't fight all of them.: Julia took a deep breath and then yelled, "Help!" at the top of her lungs. They wouldn't try to kidnap her with witnesses around, would they?  
  
Then she had a horrible thought: what if someone came, and they hurt them? Was she just drawing others into danger? A kidnapping on a public street in the middle of the day was pretty risky, maybe the kidnappers were willing to deal with some witnesses.   
  
One of the men suddenly rushed at her, and she realized that she'd automatically taken up a defensive position when she regained her feet. He grabbed at her right arm, which was leading, and she automatically did a tenkan, pivoting on her right foot and moving towards him until she was standing beside him, where he couldn't easily strike at her. Then she grabbed his wrist and stepped back away from him, her body automatically moving to do a kotegaeshi. She kicked him in the groin as he stretched out slightly to relieve the pressure on his wrist, and her foot encountered something entirely too solid to just be flesh. He didn't go down, so she continued twisting his wrist, trying to force him to fall, the way she had with the first man.  
  
In her dojo, everyone was part of a group that worked together to learn. They were not and would never be enemies, and had no desire to hurt each other. Julia had been training most of her life, and was one of the most advanced students in the class. When practicing, she was always very careful not to throw them too hard, because it was possible to seriously injure a person without meaning to. She only threw a person hard if she knew they could take the fall, if she had seen them practicing and was satisfied that she wouldn't hurt them.  
  
For the first time in her life, Julia threw a person without knowing if they could take the fall.   
  
He couldn't. He didn't know how to fall properly. She knew that the instant she applied pressure, and he just stood there, instead of using the force she was applying to throw himself, to relieve the pressure on his wrist. As the pressure increased, his body responded to it the only way it could - by breaking.  
  
Julia actually felt the bones in his wrist snap, and reacting instantly, released his hand before she could do any more damage. Then he started screaming. :Oh god, he's screaming because of me... why won't he shut up... he's screaming... I hurt him... he's screaming...: Thoughts tumbled over and over in her mind, mingling together. And he wouldn't stop screaming.  
  
"Julia!" She turned automatically when someone called her name, and saw Hidaka Sensei and most of her aikido class streaming out onto the street, still with bare feet. They must have come right from the mat when they heard her call.   
  
There were still two thugs between herself and the class. She immediately threw herself at the right-hand man, who took a step back when she moved towards him, flinching slightly. She felt a deep stab of guilt and pushed it back, then threw her bag as hard as she could at the man. It hit him and he stumbled backwards several feet. That was enough of an opening for her, she immediately darted through it, running for the relative safety of her friends. They immediately closed ranks around her as she joined them, and Sensei, John, and the rest of the senior students placed themselves between her and the thugs.   
  
The one she'd kicked was still curled up in a ball on the ground, and the one whose wrist she'd broken was crouched on the ground too, clutching his arm to his chest, teeth gritted in an attempt to keep from screaming. For a second it looked like the five remaining thugs were going to charge them. :No, please, not that...: Julia would almost prefer to go with them then be responsible for any of her classmates getting hurt.   
  
"Go. Now." Julia blinked at the quietly uttered words, then glanced at Sensei, who was staring evenly at them, his brows narrowed slightly. He sounded entirely immovable, and very threatening. She suddenly remembered that he'd fought in the war, too. She didn't even know what side he'd been on.  
  
The look on his face and his soft words must have convinced them, because they suddenly decided that it wasn't worth trying to get through him to get at her, especially after she'd proved so difficult to grab on her own. Instead, one of them helped the man with the broken wrist to his feet, while two more lifted the first man into a vertical position, throwing his arms over their shoulders. Then they quietly retreated, disappearing around the corner. Julia stared at the corner for a long time after they left, not trusting that they weren't going to come back, maybe with more men, but after a minute, she decided that maybe they really were gone.   
  
Suddenly someone grabbed her shoulders, spinning her around, and Julia raised her hands defensively before she realized that it was John. He was staring at her with wide eyes, his face more than a little pale. "Julia? Are you all right?"   
  
"Yes. They didn't touch me..." Julia cut herself off when she realized that she was never going to get away with such an obvious lie. "I mean, they didn't hurt me. I'm all right," she finished with a quick nod of her head, as if to underscore her words. Maybe then she could relax a little, and her muscles would unclench. She could feel the tension in her entire body. Strangely enough, her heart was not racing, and her breathing was steady.   
  
He embraced her, and Julia stiffened. She wasn't used to being hugged by anyone other than Daddy. Tousan didn't hug much - it wasn't that he didn't care, he just didn't do it very much. The only other people who ever hugged her were the members of her extended family, who she saw only three or four times a year. John hugging her didn't feel anything like Daddy hugging her. Not bad, but it was a surprise.   
  
John felt her stiffen and immediately pulled back. "I'm sorry," he immediately apologized.   
  
"No, it's all right, you just surprised me," Julia said, shaking her head and feeling like a complete asshole for making him feel guilty when he'd just been trying to reassure her.   
  
That seemed to break the tension, and suddenly there were what seemed like a thousand voices tumbling over each other, trying to figure out what was going on and asking *her*, as if *she* had any of the answers. Julia slapped her hands to her ears in an automatic protective gesture, trying to blot out some of the sound. She heard Sensei's voice rising above the din, ordering everyone to be quiet, and mercifully, the sound died down. He ordered everyone to go inside, and she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder, guiding her inside the dojo.   
  
The hand guided her through the front entryway and then onto the mat, heading for the small room at the back of the dojo where Sensei kept his things. She had a brief, irrational flash of worry that she was on the mat in her shoes, and she was getting it all dirty. They did have to practice on this mat, and it was never pleasant to have your face pressed against something covered in dirt...  
  
That thought led her back to the fight, the sight of the man flying over her head and scraping his palms open on the street when he didn't roll with the fall. He'd actually left a few small spots of blood on the street, she realized now. She could see them quite clearly in her mind. Not for the first time, she cursed her practically perfect memory.  
  
By then she was in Sensei's office, and the hand on her shoulder guided her to a seat, pressing her firmly into it. The door closed, and Julia cautiously removed her hands from her ears, relieved that her hearing hadn't gone nuts. She looked around the small room, noting the neat desk, the rack that held various bokkens of different sizes and lengths, along with a couple of jos. There was a large picture of O Sensei hanging on the wall, along with smaller pictures of his descendants, from his son back in the late twentieth century (prior to AC reckoning), all the way to the latest. Julia knew that the latest descendant was an old man, and that his only son had been killed during the war. There was a lot of quiet worry about who would become the new leader of the discipline when he died.  
  
"John, please call the police," Sensei said quietly.  
  
John looked startled for a moment, then nodded. "Hai, Sensei," he said with a slight bow, before turning to the phone on the desk and dialing a number. She saw him staring intently at the tiny screen in the unit, and after a moment heard a soft conversation between them. He was trying to talk quietly enough so that she couldn't hear him; he couldn't know that it was impossible to do with her this close. She determinedly blocked him out of her mind, not wanting to hear the conversation, and was grateful when Sensei began talking to her, giving her something else to focus on.   
  
"Julia..." he began slowly, carefully, as if not certain if she was entirely there. Well, now that she thought about it, she wasn't so sure, either. "How can I contact your parents? Are they at work..." he trailed off uncertainly.  
  
"Tousan will be at work," she said matter-of-factly. "Daddy could either be at the shop or at home, working."  
  
"What are their numbers? I'm going to call them and have them come here," Sensei explained slowly.   
  
Julia blinked, then gave him the numbers. He nodded slightly as John hung up the phone.  
  
"Uh, they're sending someone down here now," John told them.   
  
Sensei nodded. "I'm going to call her fathers now," he said to John like she wasn't there, listening to them. Then Sensei gave John a significant look before flicking his eyes towards Julia. She fought down a hint of irritation. She wasn't an idiot, she was just a little... um... off, right now. Yes, that was a good word for it. But she didn't need them treating her like a child.   
  
As Sensei moved towards the phone, John sat down in the seat next to her. "Do you have any idea who they were?" he asked after a second. "The policeman's going to want to know," he added, as if trying to justify his curiosity. "Were they just trying to mug you, or..." he trailed off with a wince, as if he was just realizing what other options might have been. A lone girl with seven men was not a pretty picture.  
  
"They were trying to kidnap me," Julia declared, amazed at how calm her own voice sounded.  
  
"What? How do you... I mean, are you sure?"  
  
"They knew me by name," Julia replied. "And they were following me. I think they've been following me for weeks," she added, doing a quick mental search for the faces that were now permanently burned into her eyeballs. She quickly realized she was right, now that she looked for them, she could see their faces jumping out of the crowds around her, almost every time she'd been outside in the last three weeks, ever since she returned from vacation.   
  
"They did?! But... why?" John asked, voicing the question that was at the top of her mind.   
  
"I don't know."  
  
  
---------  
  
  
Her fathers arrived at almost the same time, about ten minutes after a rather unsympathetic detective arrived. It wasn't so much that he was cold, as though he didn't quite know what to make of her. Here she was, one teenage girl, who'd apparently managed to fight off seven (admittedly unskilled) attackers, who was outwardly calm and insisting that not only had they been trying to kidnap her now, but that they'd been following her for weeks. If she'd been him, she would have been confused and doubtful as well. But from where she was standing, it was just irritating, frustrating, and she was about to start crying. She hated that, it made her feel like a baby.  
  
"Julia!" her head snapped up as she heard her Daddy's voice. As he entered the office she threw herself into his arms, clinging to his shirt. "Are you all right? Did they hurt you? Where are they? Are you all right?" the questions tumbled from his mouth, one after another, not giving her a chance to answer any of them.  
  
Right on his heels was Tousan. His face could have been carved from ice, it was so cold and unchanging. But Julia knew the expression was not directed at her when he placed a hand uncertainly on her shoulder. His other hand he placed on Daddy's shoulder, stopping the flow of words. "Are you all right?"  
  
Julia nodded. She was fine, now that they were here.   
  
"Are you her parents?" the detective asked, disapproval in his voice as he looked at the two men. Julia felt a bit of hysterical laughter bubble up in her throat. :Great. All the detectives in the world, and we have to get the skeptic homophobe.:   
  
"Yes, we are," Daddy said coldly, his arms tightening around her slightly. "And who are you?"  
  
"Detective Mark Peters," he said, flashing his credentials. "I've been sent to find out the facts of this... incident."  
  
"Incident? Is that what they're calling attempted kidnapping nowadays?" John muttered bitterly. Sensei had left him with her while the older man went to deal with the questions of the class, giving them as vague an explanation as possible and sending them home as quickly as he was able. That meant the John had been with her when the detective had started asking questions, and his dislike of the officer was becoming more and more pronounced as time passed. Julia wouldn't have cared except that the detective did not seem amused by his comments, and she didn't want him getting in trouble.   
  
"Kidnapping?!" Duo screeched, his voice rising about five octaves.   
  
"We're not certain what, exactly, happened..." the detective started, but Tousan had already dismissed him from consideration.  
  
He turned to Julia, eyes worried even though his face was expressionless as always. "What happened?" he asked flatly.  
  
"They were after me," she said, shooting the detective an angry glance. "They knew my name, and they've been following me for weeks." Unlike the detective, her fathers accepted this statement at face value. They knew what she could do, unlike the detective or John. Even John had been a little uncertain about her claim that she'd seen them before. "The one in the lead asked me if I was Julia Maxwell-Yuy, and then he told the rest to take me. They had some cloth that smelled very sweet, and the tried to press it to my face."   
  
Daddy glared at the detective. "And what the hell are you doing about this?" he demanded angrily.   
  
"It will take some time to verify..." the detective started, then trailed off at the expressions on her parents' faces. Julia glanced at them, and even though she knew that they were doing this because they were concerned about her, she shivered at the stone-cold expressions on both their faces. Was this what some unlucky Oz pilots had seen just before they died? Julia hugged Daddy, then reached out and touched Tousan. Daddy made a visible effort to calm down, smiling at her, and Tousan blinked once. His expression didn't change, but at least he stopped staring at the poor detective.   
  
She regretted her action a few seconds later when the detective seemed to gather himself, now that they weren't staring at him anymore, and continued, "In any case, this is now a police investigation. I understand that you're concern, but we will handle the issue..."  
  
"No you won't," said a familiar voice. Julia turned towards the door and saw... Wufei?  
  
He was dressed in his Preventers uniform, and the look he threw at the detective was openly scornful. "This is no longer a civil issue, we will be taking over. You may go."  
  
*That* got a reaction. "What? Who the hell do you think you are?" the detective demanded, eyes bulging.   
  
Wufei frowned slightly, then removed some identification from his pocket. "Chang Wufei, Class A Preventer Agent," he informed the man shortly. "I am taking over this investigation."  
  
"What gives you jurisdiction? And why the hell are the Preventers interested in some kid?" he demanded.  
  
"Any criminal activity involving Preventers or their families may fall under the jurisdiction of the Preventers," Wufei stated, sounding as if he was quoting something. "Especially if said criminal activity is thought to have any bearing on a current investigation," he finished with a smirk.  
  
"Preventers or their families? You trying to tell me that she's related to a Preventer?" the detective asked skeptically.   
  
"Duo Maxwell-Yuy and Heero Maxwell-Yuy are both reserve members of the Preventers, inactive agents who can be called upon in times of need. As such they qualify. Do you have any other objections?"  
  
The detective looked as though he would like to object - a lot - but both Daddy and Tousan turned on those threatening stares again, and the detective decided it wasn't worth the trouble. "Fine. Fucking government officials," he muttered as he left.  
  
Wufei watched him go without comment, then turned to John, who was watching the proceedings with open-faced confusion. "Who are you?" he asked.  
  
"John Ellis," he replied promptly, apparently deciding that he didn't want Wufei irritated with him (or maybe it was her parents he didn't want to irritate).   
  
"He's a friend of mine," Julia said quickly. "He's just been keeping me company."  
  
Wufei didn't outwardly react to her statement, although his eyes flicked to her quickly and she thought she saw a hint of understanding there. Her observation was confirmed when the next thing he said was, "I'm sorry, but this is official business. I'm going to have to ask you to leave." Not much, but his face was clear of scorn and he hadn't insulted John once yet. It was a rather large concession for him.   
  
John nodded. "I understand." He turned to Julia. "If you need anything, just call me. Oh, and Margaret got your bag for you, it's just outside the door," he added as he got up and left, casting a curious look at all of the men as he left.   
  
"Thanks, Wu-man," Daddy muttered under his breath as soon as the door closed. "How'd you get here so fast, anyway?"  
  
"We got lucky," Wufei informed him. "I was in the area collecting some information, and I'd just finished when you called me." He turned to look at Julia. "Are you all right?"  
  
Julia was getting tired of people asking her that. "Yes. I was just a little... shaken, before. I'm fine now."  
  
"You're sure it was a kidnapping attempt?" Wufei asked. She wasn't sure if the question was directed at her or her parents, but she answered.  
  
"They knew me by name," she repeated. Again. "And they've been following me for weeks."  
  
"How do you know?" he asked, instead of immediately disbelieving her.  
  
"I got a good look at them today," Julia explained. "And I've been going through my memories of the last few weeks. Every time I was outside, I can place at least one of them somewhere nearby, watching me. I spotted one of them watching me three weeks ago, too." It was rather unpleasant, now that she had time to think about it, knowing that they'd been watching her all this time.   
  
"Mmm." Wufei probably didn't know the full extent of her abilities, but he was her uncle, so he did know that she was a genius. And he knew that she wouldn't lie or exaggerate her abilities. "You got a good look at them?"  
  
"Yes," she replied cautiously.   
  
"If I get an artist down here, could you give him a description of them?"  
  
Julia swallowed. She really didn't like talking about her abilities, but she could do a better job than any artist could, and she wanted those men caught. She didn't want them free, watching her again. "I... there's no need. I can draw their faces myself. Just get me a pad and some pencils."  
  
Wufei raised an eyebrow but didn't comment. Instead, he walked over to Sensei's desk and pulled a large pad off of the top of it, along with a couple of pencils. He silently offered them to her, and she started drawing. Drafting images from memory wasn't so hard - she'd never tried doing faces before, but if she thought about them as a series of lines, instead of trying to picture the whole face at once, it came as easily to her as regular drawing had.   
  
It didn't require all of her attention, once she got started, so she started talking. "You called him on the way over?" she asked her parents.   
  
"I did," Tousan affirmed.  
  
"There was no way we were going to leave this in the hands of idiots like that guy," Daddy agreed.   
  
"Are you really reserve members of the Preventers?" she asked as she put the final touches on the first picture. It was a fairly accurate representation, even if it was still a rough sketch. "Here," she handed the picture of the man whose wrist she'd broken to Wufei. For some reason his face was sticking in her mind worst of all. "Can you use this?"  
  
"Yes," he answered, studying it critically as she started on the second picture, this one of the leader.   
  
"I'm not sure what our official status is," Daddy confessed. "We haven't taken an active mission since you were born, though."  
  
"Why not? And what's an active mission?"  
  
"Active mission is us in the field, fighting, making sure people don't try to bring back mobile suit wars or something equally stupid," Daddy told her. "And we don't do them because they're dangerous. Both of us grew up without parents, and we're not letting that happen to you," he said fiercely.  
  
"Oh," Julia said softly, humbled by the attention.   
  
"You are both reserves, although Une knows what would happen if she ever tried to put you on active duty," Wufei informed them. "That detective can lodge all the protests he wants, but we're covered there."  
  
"Um... Why, exactly, are they still reserves?" Julia asked, feeling as if she was asking a very stupid question but not seeing the answer herself.   
  
"So that we could have jurisdiction if anything ever happened," Wufei answered simply. "Technically, Quatre and Trowa are reserves, too."   
  
"Have you ever had to... take over an investigation involving one of them?"  
  
"Most of the legal difficulties Winner runs into involve that company of his," Wufei replied. "Those aren't any concern of ours."  
  
:That doesn't really answer the question,: Julia thought, then dismissed the question from her mind. It wasn't really any of her business.  
  
"Here." She handed him the second picture, of the leader. He glanced at it once, then took a second, longer look. His skin turned slightly pale under the darker tones - that wasn't a good sign. "What?"  
  
"Julia... are you sure this is what one of them looked like?" he asked, holding her own picture in front of her.  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Do you remember anything else about him?"  
  
"What's going on, Wu?" Daddy asked suspiciously.  
  
Wufei ignored him, all of his attention focused on Julia. It wasn't entirely a pleasant feeling. She closed her eyes so she could review the image in her mind without any distractions. "Um... he had a scar on his right forearm," she said, tracing a line along the outside of her own arm. "About 6' 4'', pretty ratty clothes. That's it."   
  
She opened his eyes and saw that now he had his eyes closed. "Do you know who he is?" she asked nervously, not liking the implications. If he knew him, it meant that the Preventers had to be investigating him, and that meant that he wasn't a common thug. She'd known that they weren't just muggers, but if the Preventers were involved...  
  
Wufei didn't answer her, and Daddy tightened his grip on her slightly. "Wu?" he asked, his voice slightly warning.  
  
"His name is Brandon Stevens," Wufei said with a sigh. "We know of him because we've frequently seen him in the company of Miles Harris."  
  
Julia didn't recognize either of the names, but her parents did, she guessed as the tension in the room suddenly intensified by several notches. "Who is he?" she asked into the silence that followed.   
  
"Julia, I don't know if you remember this, but right around the time you found out about us, the Preventers made an announcement that they'd managed to find the people who'd been trying to build mobile suits?" Daddy asked.  
  
Resisting the urge to tell him that she remembered everything, she nodded. "Tousan traced the electronic trail, right?"  
  
Daddy nodded, not looking particularly surprised that she'd made that connection. Wufei, on the other hand, frowned slightly and glanced at Tousan, as if accusing him of telling her. "Yeah, well the guy in charge of that particular idiocy was Miles Harris."  
  
Oh. That explained why they were so tense. "And this guy... spent a lot of time with him?"  
  
"Apparently," Daddy muttered. "I thought you had all of them in custody," he said accusingly.  
  
"We have most of them," Wufei admitted. "Including Harris. There are only a dozen or so unaccounted for in an organization of hundreds."  
  
"Let me guess, this Stevens guy is one of them," Daddy said, sarcasm dripping from his voice.   
  
Wufei nodded, but he suddenly seemed to be avoiding their eyes. Julia watched him carefully, noticing the way his eyes slid over them like they weren't even there. "Wu..." Daddy repeated in exactly the same tone as before. "What is it?"  
  
"It's official business," he said suddenly, moving towards the door.  
  
Tousan was suddenly standing between him and the door, a hand on Wufei's arm, and he wasn't even trying to hide how angry he was. "What. Do. You. Know," he ground out, biting off every word.   
  
Wufei looked down at the hand clutching his arm, and Julia didn't need to be told that if Wufei hadn't also been a Gundam pilot, the grip Tousan had on his arm would probably have been enough to break the bones. His lips flattened into a thin line, and he lowered his head for several seconds. Finally he raised it, and, still not looking at them, said, "We heard rumors that they were looking for you."  
  
"What?!" Daddy said, unconsciously (probably) turning his body so that it was between Julia and Wufei. "You knew? You knew about this and didn't tell us?!" he was shouting now, and Julia winced away from the sound. She wanted to stay where she was, with him hugging her, but his yelling hurt her ears.   
  
"Daddy..." she said in a voice that sounded far too much like a whimper. She was *not* going to break down now!   
  
Daddy glanced at her, and immediately lowered his voice, although the anger didn't leave his face. "Sorry, Julie," he said in a voice hardly above a whisper, before turning back to Wufei and continuing in an almost-normal voice that was just as frightening as his yelling. "You knew that this guy was... after our family, and you didn't tell us?"  
  
"No!" Wufei loudly denied. "We didn't know that! All we had were rumors of rumors... We'd heard that they were looking for you, only you. There was no indication that they'd found you, or that they were going to do anything about it." Julia could feel some - but only some - of the anger draining out of her father. Wufei took a deep breath, then continued, his voice an odd combination of pleading and firm. "If there'd been any indication, any at all, that Julia was in danger, I would have told you, regulations be damned!"  
  
Daddy's head drooped for a second, and when it came up, he had a faint smile on his face. "Sorry, Wu," he apologized. "It's just when Julia's involved..." he gave her a little squeeze.   
  
"I understand," Wufei said stiffly. He was almost as bad about showing emotion as Tousan was. Almost.  
  
"I want to see what you have," Tousan demanded quietly.   
  
Wufei seemed relieved at the shift to the less emotional topic, and nodded sharply. "I'll see to it that you're assigned officially to this case. Then you'll have full access to everything we have, and you can have whatever resources you need."  
  
"What... what about now?" Julia asked, trying not to sound as if she was whimpering or whining. "They ran off... are they going to... come back?" She couldn't quite bring herself to say the words, 'for me.'  
  
Even as Daddy's arms tightened around her again, Wufei was shaking his head. "We'll protect you. I'll have someone assigned to you twenty-four hours a day, to escort you wherever you need to go, and keep an eye out while you're there."   
  
"You're going to have someone following me around?"  
  
"If you want, I'll stay with you," Daddy immediately told her.   
  
Julia swallowed, then shook her head. "No. I... I'm not letting them run my life. Or yours. You're not going to spend all of your time following me around. I'll be fine." Maybe if she said it enough times she'd convince herself.  
  
  
----------  
  
  
Julia swore to herself as, once again, she managed to poke herself in the head with one of the bobby-pins. She pulled the offending pin out of her hair, somehow managing *not* to tangle it or rip several strands out by the roots, the way she had several times already. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. OK, she was nervous, she could admit that, but this was absolutely ridiculous. It was just a bunch of teachers. She'd had half of them at one point or another. She took a deep breath and once again attempted to place the pin. This time it slid smoothly into her hair and stayed there, holding her hair in place without attempting to gouge large bits of skin out of her head. Cautiously turning her head back and forth, she breathed a sigh of relief when her hair stayed pretty much in place. At least that chore was out of the way...  
  
Today was the day she was presenting her project to a small panel of teachers, who would question her work and determine a good part of her grade on it. She was excited beyond belief, and not a little bit nervous.  
  
There was a soft knock on the door, and she automatically called, "Come in!"  
  
The door opened, revealing Daddy. "I just wanted to..." he started, then trailed off, staring at her.  
  
Julia glanced to either side of her to make sure that he actually was staring at her, then smiled self-consciously. "What are you looking at?"  
  
"You," he said simply. "You look beautiful."  
  
Julia glanced at herself in the mirror. She was wearing a pair of nice pants, instead of jeans, and an embroidered blouse. Her hair was presentable, and she'd actually taken the time to put on a little makeup. She guessed that she looked all right. "Did I ever mention how much I hate makeup?" she asked, trying to hide the blush of pleasure at his words.   
  
"Just over and over and over and over and over..."  
  
"All right, I get it!" she exclaimed, throwing a book at him.   
  
He easily caught it, and tossed it on her bed. "You nervous?"  
  
"Just a little," she confessed.  
  
"Don't be, you're going to do great."   
  
"Easy for you to say, you never went to school!" Julia glanced at her father, wondering if she'd gone too far, but he just grinned.  
  
"Technically, I've been to dozens of schools," he told her. "I just only stayed in them for a few days."  
  
"That doesn't count!" she told him, scooping up her backpack and glancing at the clock. "And if I don't leave soon, I'm going to be late!"  
  
"I just came up to tell you that Scott's here."   
  
"Thanks! I love you Daddy, see you later!" she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and bolted down the stairs.   
  
Scott Ido, one of the three Preventers who took turns guarding her, was waiting on the front step. "Today's the day?" he asked with a grin, observing her outfit. She felt a little sorry for him, she'd been a little excited about finally getting to present her project, so she'd been talking about it non-stop to anyone who would stand still. Unfortunately for her guards, they *had* to be around her, so she imagined that they had to be pretty tired of hearing about it.  
  
She nodded as they started walking towards her school.  
It was really amazing what you could get used to. A month ago, the idea of her having a guard would have been absolutely ridiculous. Now...  
  
She didn't know how long it was going to last. This had to end at some point, but after over three weeks, the Preventers (and her fathers) had been unable to find Stevens or his men. They'd found out that Stevens wasn't particularly high in the organization, which made their job a lot more difficult, since he wasn't really connected to anything. That was how he'd managed to avoid being picked up in the first sweep, apparently. As far as they could tell, he'd been a bodyguard of some sort, but it was hard to find more information. And the captured members of the group weren't talking.  
  
Julia knew all of this because her fathers had explained it to her, in an attempt to waylay her fears. It hadn't exactly worked, but she tried her best to set her own fears aside. The nightmares that had tormented her in the nights immediately after the attack came rarely now, only once every couple of days instead of multiple times in one night. She didn't think that she'd woken either of her parents in a couple of nights, either.   
  
Despite the fact that they hadn't caught the people who'd attacked her, Julia found herself unable to maintain the level of anxiety she'd had for the first few days after the attack. She'd been jumpy, moody, and altogether unhappy; spinning around to defend herself whenever she heard the slightest unusual noise. But after she'd spun around, only to find the noise that had disturbed her was a dog dragging a large stick across the pavement, she'd made a conscious effort to relax. After a few more days, it had actually begun to work. It was impossible to remain on-edge all the time.   
  
"Are you nervous?" Scott asked, drawing her out of her thoughts.  
  
"Why does everyone ask me that?" she demanded.   
  
"Because you've been talking about nothing else for weeks, and today's finally the day," he responded with a smile. She was glad that Scott was the one guarding her today - he was her favorite of the three guards, and the closest to her own age, even if he was over ten years older than her. The other two looked on her as nothing more than a job, only Scott had taken the time to try to get to know her.  
  
"Yeah, a little," she confessed. "But I'm sure everything will be fine."  
  
"Well, good luck!" he said as they approached the school grounds. As usual, he'd be waiting in a car just off the grounds until school ended, then he'd walk her home, or anywhere else she needed to go. Julia had had several lectures on not wandering off without her guard while she was at school.  
  
"Thanks!" she called, sprinting towards the door as she heard the late bell ringing.  
  
  
----------  
  
  
"So how'd it go?" Scott asked as soon as she exited the school.  
  
"Great!" Julia exclaimed, practically bouncing as she walked down the street. "I mean, Mrs. Kinley wasn't happy... but I don't think that she's going to try to screw me over. The teachers on the panel were great! They were actually listening to what I was saying, and not just judging me because of what my topic was," she told him in a rush. "I don't think Mr. O'Donnel was *happy* with the conclusions I came to, but he said that all of the research was solid. And Mrs. Danahy... she was amazing! She asked all the right questions, and I think that she loved the interview at the end!"  
  
Scott grinned at her. "So I guess it went well?"  
  
Julia restrained the urge to smack him and grinned back instead. "At least I won't have to worry about it anymore. And... oh, this was just so great!" she exclaimed.  
  
"Hey, if you don't mind, sometime I'd..." he suddenly stiffened and stopped walking.  
  
Julia immediately turned. "What?"  
  
His face was very white as his legs seemed to collapse out from under him, and he bonelessly slumped to the ground beside her. "Scott!" she exclaimed, dropping to one knee beside him.  
  
Suddenly there was a sharp stinging pain in her shoulder. "Ow!" she exclaimed, reflexively slapping a hand against her shoulder. Her hand encountered some fuzz and something metallic. She looked down and saw a small dart sticking out of her shoulder. :Oh God.: She froze, trapped by indecision, as a white van suddenly pulled up next to her. Every instinct for self-preservation that she had was screaming at her to run, but Scott was still lying there on the concrete. She couldn't just leave him...  
The side door of the van opened and she involuntarily stumbled back several steps, despite her concern for Scott, as several of the thugs who'd attacked her before climbed out of the van. "You!" she cried.  
"Damn it, you must have missed," one of them muttered. "Shoot her!"  
Another one raised a small gun and fired. Julia gasped in pain, tears coming to her eyes, as another dart imbedded itself in her chest. She leaned over, clutching at her chest as a wave of dizziness overtook her, and the world tilted. Suddenly a flash of light appeared before her eyes as they tilted upwards slightly, and she threw up her arms to protect her eyes. There was a thunderous sound in front of her, like a gun being fired, and it wasn't for a full second after the sound faded that she realized that her control over her hearing was gone, and the noise she'd heard had been someone's feet landing on the ground as they jumped out of the van. "No..." she moaned, then fell silent as her own voice grated in her ears.  
She clapped both hands to her ears, trying to stifle some of the thousands of sounds that were now battering at her ears from all directions. Her eyes were tightly closed, but lights dazzled her eyes, and she couldn't have seen anything even if she did open her eyes.   
A third dart hit her, and that was when she discovered that her skin was highly sensitized as well. She swore she could feel every millimeter of the needle penetrating her skin, could feel it wiggling around as she moved, disturbing the delicate tissues...  
It was almost a relief when the blackness rose up to swallow her, except for her overwhelming terror of what they were going to do to her...  
  
  
---------  
  
  
Duo was sitting on his bed, a laptop computer in front of him, checking over the latest data that Wufei had sent them. :Look at me, hunched over this thing like an ape. Betcha I look just like Heero.: He snorted and then pushed the laptop away from himself and got up off the bed. There was nothing new here. There was something that just didn't add up here. He was too high in the organization for there to be as little information on him as there was, and (if he really was some sort of bodyguard, which Duo doubted) too low to have the kind of resources he needed to hide from three determined Gundam pilots.   
  
Stretching his arms above his head, Duo glanced at the clock. Julia should be home from school soon, assuming that she didn't decide to go somewhere after school again. He grimaced; she was having a lot of trouble adjusting to not being able to go wherever she wanted without letting anyone know. All the more reason to get back to work, to find the bastard so that they could dispense with the bodyguards. With a sigh, he turned back to the bed. Even during the war, research had never been his strength.  
  
The phone rang, and he immediately turned to answer it, feeling more than a little guilty at how eager he was to avoid the work. Heero did this all day long, every day...  
  
:Yeah, but he likes it,: he reminded himself, then hit the button to pick up the phone. "Hiya!"  
  
The smile on his face immediately died as he observed the look on Trowa's face. His lips were pressed together, their were faint stress lines around his eyes, and he looked even paler than normal. The last time Duo had seen him look like that was when Katie's powers were going crazy and Quatre had to move out of the house or risk driving Katie insane. The last time before that had been when Trowa lost his memories during the war. "What's wrong?"  
  
"It's Katie. And Quatre. They just collapsed. Quatre's still unconscious. Katie insisted that I call you..."  
  
"Let me talk to him," said a harsh voice. Trowa started to protest, but the voice continued, "Help Quatre. He's going to need sugar, and a lot of it, when he wakes up. He threw everything he had into protecting me. I'll be fine."  
  
Trowa looked as though he would very much like to protest, but for some reason, he did not, standing up and moving out of range of the screen. A second later Katie took his place. Duo's jaw dropped. She looked absolutely horrible - her skin was so pale it was practically translucent, and it looked like it was hanging off her bones. Add to that the huge black circles under her eyes... "Katie! What's been happening?"  
  
"I haven't been sleeping well lately," she replied with massive understatement, and he was shocked to realize that the harsh voice he'd heard earlier was hers. :Since when does she refer to her father by his first name?:  
  
"What happened? Is Quat OK?" he asked worriedly.  
  
"Quatre will be fine. It's Julia, they've got her."  
  
Duo felt his stomach clench in on itself. "What?!"  
  
"They have her. They just grabbed her, a half hour ago. I'm sorry, I would have called..."  
  
"Wait a second, what are you talking about? How did you know..."  
  
"I'm a psychic, Duo," Katie said harshly, cutting him off. "And Julia's my sister. There's no way I couldn't be aware of her. And she just screamed loudly enough that I heard her here. And now she's gone. They've got her."  
  
Duo was moving towards the closet before he was even consciously aware of a decision. After the first kidnapping attempt, Heero had moved the lockbox with their guns downstairs, to this closet. It took only a few seconds and his gun was out of the box, loaded and tucked into the back of his pants. It was horrible, how easily it seemed to fit there, how familiar and reassuring the weight of the metal was...  
  
"You said it was a half-hour ago?" he asked, turning his head back towards the screen as he pocketed Heero's gun.   
  
Katie glanced off-screen for a second. "Yes. Maybe a little less. And Duo..."  
  
"What?" he growled, pausing on his way out the door.  
  
"I think she lost control of her powers right before they knocked her out."  
  
Duo became very still. He could hear his own pounding heart. "They knocked her out?"  
  
Katie nodded, looking miserable. "It's the only thing that could account for what I heard. But if she did lose control... she may need a lot of help, and soon."  
  
Duo tried to swallow past the lump in his throat, and settled for a curt nod. "Thanks."   
  
He raced out the door, already reaching into the pocket of his jacket for a cell phone, so that he could call Heero and let him know what had happened. And then he was going to find his daughter. :I can't lose her, I just can't. Not again.:  
  
  
  
  
  
OK. Before the death threats begin, I am sorry, and I already have my mother yelling at me for ending things here. It just really had to end here, simple as that. Things are going to get better... eventually.  
  
Anyway, notes on the chapter. I hope that the fight scene came out all right. I had it mapped out in my head, and I think it would work, but I can't be sure without getting a couple of people to enact it for me, and that wasn't going to happen. I was trying to use some of the right language with enough description so that people who don't recognize it will be able to follow along.   
  
After rereading this, I sort of feel like it was an even meaner thing to do, sticking that light section in between the two kidnapping sections. Oh well. There's a lot of action in the next chapter, and some things that I planted earlier in the story (much earlier) will finally start to come together. Hope you're enjoying the trip so far!  
  
Marika 2/1/02 


	11. Part 10a

Julia hurt. A lot. Her entire body ached, with intense concentrations of pain in her shoulder, chest, and head. :Ah yes, the head, mustn't forget the head.: She couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this bad. The closest she could remember was the time that she'd taken a bad fall, wrenched her knee, and right after that, fallen down a short flight of stairs because of the bad knee. And even that pain had faded after a few minutes. Julia lay quietly, waiting for the pain to fade, trying to get control of her senses so that she didn't feel the pain quite so intensely. And in the back of her mind was the thought that maybe if she just lay here long enough, everything that she remembered would all turn out to be some sort of awful nightmare.   
  
No such luck. After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a few minutes, the pain did fade, even the throbbing in her head stopped. And that, of course, left her with nothing else to do but open her eyes and look around.  
  
It hadn't been a nightmare, at least not one in her sleep. Looking around, Julia felt very much like she was in some kind of living nightmare. She was lying on the floor of a featureless room with a single halogen light on the ceiling and a metal door in the wall opposite her. Julia sat up, and discovered one other feature of her situation - there was a handcuff around her left wrist, and the other end of it was attached to a radiator she was lying next to. Julia felt a hysterical giggle bubbling up as the thought crossed her mind that this situation couldn't possibly get more cliché, but she forced it back down. Now was not a good time to give in to hysterics. She was going to wait until she was safe at home, and then she was going to have a nice little mental breakdown. That was appropriate after you were kidnapped, right?  
  
There was a sudden click coming from the door, and Julia tried to press herself into the wall as it swung open. The man opening the door was muttering to himself as he pushed open the door with his right hand. "Just got a few minutes, but it ought to be enough..." He stopped short when he saw her staring at him. "What the hell... How are you awake?!" he demanded.  
  
Julia didn't have a clue what he was talking about, but that might have been because her brain shut down as soon as she saw his face. He was the one she'd fought before on the streets. If her memory of his face wasn't enough proof, his left arm was encased in a cast from palm to elbow. She swallowed hard and tried to forget the feel of bones breaking under her hands. "I... I'm sorry," she whispered.   
  
That was probably the absolute dumbest thing she could have said, but it was the only thing she could think of right now, how horrible it had felt to hurt him like that.  
  
"You're what?!" he demanded, taking several steps towards her.  
  
Julia shrank a little farther in on herself. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to hurt you," she said in a whisper that was hardly more than a breath.  
  
"Sorry, are you?" he snarled. "You're going to be more than sorry when I'm done with you." He took several more steps, covering the distance between, and raised his foot to kick her.   
  
Julia automatically raised her right arm to deflect the blow and protect herself, but she forgot about the handcuff on her left arm. The kick, even though she managed to deflect most of its force, was enough to knock her forward. Normally she would have just rolled, but she couldn't move forward that far, so she just fell forward until the handcuff jerked her back, stopping her short. She ended up sprawled out on the floor with a badly scraped chin and palm. Then he stepped forward and kicked her in the stomach.  
  
She would have cried out in pain, but he'd managed to knock all of the wind out of her, so for a few seconds she could think about nothing but getting air back into her lungs. He was beating her!   
  
:I... I can't just lay here...:  
  
"How you feeling now, you little bitch!"   
  
The words echoed in her mind as she struggled to her knees, once again putting her back to the wall. This time she stayed in a crouch, keeping her left arm loose at her side and her right arm in front of her. He'd backed up a few steps to watch her struggling to get her breath back, but now he frowned. "Want some more?"  
  
:I can't believe this. This isn't happening to me... This isn't real...:  
  
He took a step towards her, drawing back his foot to kick her again. "Stay away from me!" she shrieked. But she didn't wait for the blow this time. Once again she planted her left hand and pivoted on it, slamming her right leg into the thug's as hard as she could. Maybe it was because of adrenaline, or maybe because she kicked him in just the wrong place, but she heard the 'snap!' of bone breaking when her leg impacted, and *she* didn't feel any pain.  
  
The thug stared at her in shock for just a second, then dropped to the floor, screaming and clutching at his leg. Julia stared at him in horror, and the part of her mind that wasn't screaming along with him wondered whether she was going to throw up or burst into tears first.   
  
Then she heard footsteps in the hall, and her head snapped up as three men bearing guns raced into the room, aiming their weapons at her and the man on the floor. Julia immediately forgot any other concerns as she flattened herself against the wall, trying to put as much distance between herself and the guns as possible. :Oh God, they have guns... they're going to kill me... I pissed them off, and now they're going to kill me...:  
  
"What happened here?!" the leader... Stevens... demanded. Julia just stared up at him, too terrified to speak.  
  
"Lester..." the man said threateningly, turning on his own subordinate.  
  
"That bitch attacked me!" he yelled.  
  
"And just what the hell were you doing in here, anyway?" Stevens demanded coldly. "I gave orders to stay away from her."  
  
Lester, if that was really his name, didn't answer. Stevens turned back towards Julia, and took a few steps, bringing himself within reach of her. Julia froze as he casually aimed the gun at her, starting with her hand, and slowly training it up towards her face. He actually placed the gun under her chin and used it to tilt her head upwards, giving him a clear view of the scrapes on her chin.   
  
"You fucking idiot," Stevens said in a low voice, finally moving away from her. Julia started breathing again. "You were beating on her, weren't you?" Lester didn't answer and averted his eyes. "Idiot! I should shoot you now... do you have any idea who her parents are?"   
  
Lester continued to stare sullenly at the floor as he shook his head.  
  
"They're Gundam pilots! Both of them! You wanna piss them off more by hurting their daughter?"  
  
Lester's eyes were open wide with fear now, and he stared at Julia as if he was terrified of her.   
  
That provoked a reaction from one of the other men. "Gundam pilots?! I thought we were just going after some programmer... You never said nothing about any Gundam pilots..."  
  
"I didn't find the information until recently," Stevens dismissed the man's objections with a wave of his gun. "It changes nothing. We can still use them, just like we planned." He regarded Lester silently for a moment, then said, "Get him out of here. And if I hear anything about anyone else molesting her, I'll shoot them myself. Got it?"  
  
The men muttered their agreement, then lifted Lester off the ground, doing their best not to jostle his broken leg. They carried him out the door, but Stevens stayed behind, looking at her curiously. "You're a tough little thing, aren't you?" he asked rhetorically. Julia still didn't answer. "Ah well, I guess it's to be expected. You know, I'd really appreciate it if you'd stop hurting my men. It's bad for morale, and if you keep it up, I might not be able to keep them away from you. You don't want that, do you?"  
  
Julia somehow managed to shake her head negatively.  
  
"Good. Glad we understand each other. You just sit tight. This will be over one way or another soon."  
  
Julia couldn't help herself. "One way or another?" she whispered.   
  
"We'll send our demands soon," he told her. "If your parents do as they're told, we'll release you as soon as they're done." She saw something in his eyes flicker, and his heartbeat sped up slightly. "If they try something, though... lets just say you don't want them to try anything."  
  
He holstered the gun in a shoulder rig, then turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Julia heard the lock turning, and his footsteps receding. She strained to hear, and didn't relax in the slightest until she couldn't hear him anymore.   
  
:I'm a hostage. They're going to make Duo-daddy and otousan do something, something bad. And they're going to kill me.: She knew her fathers well, and knew that there was absolutely no way that they were going to be able to tamely wait this out, or that they would trust Stevens when he said that he'd let her go. She didn't believe him, either. She wasn't an expert, but she knew an irregular heartbeat when she heard one. He'd been lying when he said that he'd release her. He was only keeping her alive now because he probably needed to give them proof that she was safe. But... letting her go? She couldn't picture it, and didn't like the implications.  
  
:I have to get out of here.:   
  
Julia found it a little bit humorous that instead of scaring her senseless, Stevens had actually managed to push her past the point where she was terrified. Now she was just numb.   
  
She looked down at the handcuff on her left wrist. She needed to get out of this first. Her fathers were coming after her, but she couldn't just wait for them. If she could get out of this room, she could hide somewhere, maybe, until they came. But first she had to get out of this room...  
  
As she thought, she'd been staring at the key hole of the handcuff. Something about this seemed familiar...   
  
Julia stiffened as a buried memory flickered near the surface. Sitting on something warm and comfortable, snuggled up against Daddy's chest... He was holding a pair of handcuffs, which dangled from his hand. "See, easy!" he told her, and she giggled, reaching towards the shiny object. She was very young in this memory, whenever it was.  
  
"Baka," Tousan's voice said from somewhere above her. "Do you want her to grow up to be a thief?"   
  
"Aww, she's too young to remember this," Daddy's voice was caring, and reassuring even just in memory. "And it does entertain her. See how she watches?"  
  
The memory fragment faded as suddenly as it had come, and Julia shook her head, trying to clear it. Daddy had shown her how to pick locks at one point? It wasn't that surprising, now that she thought of it. He'd been a Gundam pilot, and before then he'd lived on the streets, stealing for a living. It wasn't that odd that he would know how to pick locks. It was a little odd to show something like that to an infant, but it must have been right after they adopted her, when they were still getting used to the idea of fatherhood. He must have been going out of his mind trying to find things to occupy her.  
  
Julia smiled slightly at the thought of Daddy running around, trying to figure out how to entertain an infant, and falling back onto the skill of lock-picking to do it, then forced herself to be serious. Anything anyone heard or saw was never forgotten, just tucked away somewhere in their minds. And she could recover that information.   
  
:It's better than just sitting here, waiting to be rescued or killed,: her brain pointed out logically.   
  
It was a very old memory, almost fifteen years old. It would take her a long time and a lot of work to recover. But it was better than just sitting here. And at least she wouldn't be thinking about her present situation.   
  
Julia settled herself against the wall, trying to get as comfortable as she could, under the circumstances, then she closed her eyes. It was more difficult than usual to slip into the half-trance necessary for digging up really old memories, but eventually she managed it, and found herself lost in the past...  
  
  
---------  
  
  
Eight hours. Julia had been missing for eight hours, and there was no word of her. Duo had raced from the house along the path she would have taken to and from school, and found Scott lying on the street, a dart embedded in his chest. It had taken them several hours to revive him, and even then he couldn't tell them much more then they already knew. It was obvious that he felt absolutely horrible about not preventing the kidnapping, and if circumstances had been different Duo would have felt bad about the grilling Heero gave him, but as it was, he just wanted to find Julia.   
  
Approximately five and a half hours after Katie had called them to let them know Julia had been kidnapped, Katie, Quatre, and Trowa arrived on-planet. As far as Duo knew, Katie had never left the colony before. It had been a big shock when she left Quatre's estate long enough to pick them up when they'd last visited, for her to come off colony... She didn't look very good - exceedingly pale and strained, but she insisted that she had to be here, that she could help. She spent most of her time in the car that Quatre had brought down with him on his own shuttle, it had some shielding in it that was helping her deal with all of the people around her, but it was obvious that it wasn't going to help her forever. But she'd announced that she had to be here, to do something (she didn't say what - either she didn't know or wasn't telling them), and that she wasn't leaving until she finished.   
  
She was currently sitting outside in the car again. Duo didn't really blame her - in just a few hours Wufei had managed to mobilize what seemed like half of the Preventers to search for Julia, and most of them were basing the search from their house. It was almost overwhelming, even for him, and he wasn't a telepath.   
  
"Duo," Trowa said, walking up to him. "Katie wants to talk to you."  
  
Duo's eyes flicked across the room to where Heero was reviewing the little data they had that might tell them where Julia was, then nodded slightly. Heero could take care of things here. With so little information, there was very little they could do except wait. And that was the hardest thing in the world to do, when he knew that his little girl was out there somewhere, scared, possibly hurt, and alone...  
  
Duo followed Trowa out to the car parked in the street (although limo probably would have been a more accurate description), and climbed inside.   
  
"Julia's awake," Katie said immediately. She was sitting straight upright, stiff as a board, staring into space. One of her hands gripped Quatre's tightly enough that Duo was sure she'd leave indentations whenever she let go. Quatre was also incredibly tense, but all of his attention seemed to be focused on Katie, whereas her attention seemed focused outward.   
  
"What?" Duo asked, immediately sliding into the seat.  
  
"She's awake," Katie repeated. "I can feel her. She's OK."  
  
"Are you sure?" Duo asked, noting that he sounded a little desperate, even to his own ears.   
  
"She's a little sore, but her powers are under control again and she's uninjured," Katie replied, her voice unnaturally calm. Duo glanced at Trowa to see if this was normal for her, but the worried look on Trowa's face was enough of an answer. "She's in a small room, handcuffed to a radiator, but they haven't done anything else..." she suddenly cut herself off, and winced.   
  
"Katie?" Trowa asked. "What's wrong?"  
  
"It's nothing..." Katie said after a long silence. "She's fine.   
  
"What happened?"  
  
"I... I just lost the connection for a moment. It's nothing." Trowa looked as though he didn't believe her, but he didn't dispute her claim. "She's fine. They're just leaving her alone," Katie repeated, then winced, rubbing her forehead. Looking over at Quatre, she shook her head and pried her hand out of his. Almost immediately Quatre went limp, breathing deeply. After a few seconds he straightened up and looked at Katie.   
  
"Are you all right?" he asked.  
  
Katie swallowed but managed a sickly smile. "I'm fine. I'll be fine. Thanks for the blocking, Dad."   
  
Quatre smiled thinly, but he still looked worried. He stared at her silently for a moment, and she frowned and shook her head. "I can't leave yet." She turned and looked at Trowa, then finally shifted from her rigidly seated position. She leaned forward and placed one hand gently on his arm, first where the cloth covered his skin, then she slowly slid her arm down to touch his hand. Trowa smiled faintly, then closed his eyes as hers went blank.  
  
"Trowa?" Duo asked, but Trowa didn't seem to be listening. :What the hell...: "What's going on?" he demanded of Quatre. "Since when is he psychic too?"  
  
"He's not psychic, Duo," Quatre replied wearily. "Remember? We told you at the party, Katie can just make herself heard if she's close enough to him. It takes a lot of concentration for both of them to communicate in words, though."  
  
"Are you all right?"  
  
Quatre smiled gently at him. "I'm fine. I've got the easier part, really. I'm just shielding Katie a little, so that she doesn't get bombarded by as many thoughts when she goes looking for Julia. It's not perfect, but it's better than no protection at all." He looked worried. "She can't stay here much longer, it's destroying her shields," he said softly.   
  
"What is she waiting for?" Duo asked. He didn't have a clue what Quatre was talking about, but he'd heard Katie say that she couldn't leave yet too many times to miss that point.  
  
"I don't know. I don't know if she knows. But she will, when the time comes."  
  
"Oh. Was she really in contact with Julia?"  
  
"If she says she was, she was."  
  
"But if she's contacting her, why can't she just lead us to her?" Duo demanded. He knew it was unreasonable to expect miracles out of the girl, but it wasn't exactly his reason that was speaking right now. His baby girl was out there, somewhere, and he couldn't help her.  
  
"Because I'm not a fucking dog," Katie said harshly. She'd come out of her trance when he wasn't watching, and was now wincing, hands pressed to her temples. "I can connect to her because we're linked, but it's not like a radar, it's just there. She doesn't know where she is, so I can't find out from her. I need to find someone who knows where she is, and I need something to focus on in order to do that." She winced again and slid away from him a little. "Please calm down. I can't feel anything at all over your fear. And it hurts."  
  
Duo swallowed, and attempted to calm down a little, pushing his feelings away for her sake. "I'm sorry. Is that why you asked so see those pictures Julia drew after... after the first attempt," he managed to get out.  
  
Katie's eyes were getting glassy again, and her breathing was speeding up. "I... yes... I..." her eyes unfocused completely for several seconds. "What was the question again?" They refocused on him. "Oh yes, the pictures. The ones that Julia drew. I... I looked at the pictures that Julia drew. Couldn't use them. They felt too much like her. The pictures she drew, she burned that incident into them. I looked at them." Now her chest was rising and falling rapidly, eyes darting back and forth around the interior of the car.  
  
"Should I leave?" Duo asked, getting very concerned very fast. He reached for the handle to the door, but before he could turn it, someone knocked on the window. He cracked open the door. "Yes?"  
  
"They need you inside, sir. A ransom note has been delivered."  
  
"What? How?"  
  
"A package with a disk arrived by mail just now."  
  
"Thank you," Duo immediately began to slip out of the car.  
  
"Wait!" Katie gasped, and Duo spun to look at her. "I... I might be able to use that. Don't let anyone else touch it."  
  
Duo glanced at the nameless young Preventer. "You heard her! Get in there and make sure no one touches the thing!"  
  
"Ah, yes sir!" the young man stammered, then ran into the house.   
  
"Do you need anything else?" Duo asked Katie.   
  
"If... you could get people away from me, that might help," Katie replied slowly, crawling towards the door. She was nearly hyperventilating now, and looked terrible.   
  
"Are you sure you're all right?" Duo asked her.   
  
"I'm going to punch the next person who asks me that," she mumbled. "I'll be fine."  
  
But he watched her as she climbed out of the car, and saw her flinch violently when she looked at the house, sagging back against the car. "Katie, if this is going to hurt you..."  
  
"Shut up!" she snapped, and he wasn't altogether certain she was talking to him as she screwed her face up and pressed her hands to her temples. "I'm going to find Julia! Now stop worrying about me, you're making it worse. Just... try to clear the way for me," she finished, leaning heavily against Trowa, who'd followed her out.  
  
Duo glanced at Trowa, ready to stuff her back in the car and send her back to L4 if he gave the word, but the taller man simply nodded slightly, wrapping one long arm around Katie's shoulders. He started half-supporting, half-carrying her, making slow progress towards the house, with Quatre trailing anxiously behind.   
  
Spinning on his heel, Duo ran back to his house. "All right, everyone out in the back, right now!" he ordered. Everyone stared at him like he'd lost his mind. "Out!" he repeated, louder this time, and several people jumped.   
  
After a few seconds, some of the Preventers started shuffling out the back door. Heero glared at the ones who looked like they might ignore Duo until they also decided it was better to humor him for now. "What is it?" he asked quietly, coming closer.  
  
"Katie wants to see the disc," he said in a low voice. "She thinks she can use it to find Julia."   
  
Heero's eyes widened slightly, and he swallowed. "Can..." he trailed off for a second, then took refuge in the practical. "Why did you want everyone out?"  
  
"Katie's having a rough time. Less people is better," Duo explained.   
  
Heero blinked, then asked, "Should we leave?"  
  
"No, it's fine. You all are so focused you're reasonably quiet, as long as you're not thinking about me." Katie was practically being carried by Trowa now, but she seemed to have gotten some control back. "Is that the disc?" she asked, nodding towards a disk lying by Heero's laptop.   
  
"Hai."  
  
"OK. This might take a few minutes." Katie sat in Heero's chair, lay both of her hands gently on the disc, and closed her eyes. 


	12. Part 10b

Julia had a headache, but that was normal after recovering a memory that old. And it had been old, probably only a few weeks after Daddy and Tousan adopted her. She almost never looked before that time. Even her memories had some limits, because whenever she tried to look before her adoption, her memories made no sense. Mostly she remembered a lot of white, with some old men and some equipment that looked like something out of a horror movie. Specifically, there was nothing that looked even vaguely like an orphanage, and she doubted that the creepy old men were social service workers. The first few times she'd ventured that far back, when she was younger, she'd ended up with horrible nightmares for the next week. After a couple of repetitions, she'd stopped going back that far entirely.   
  
She examined the lock closely, focusing her eyes on the inside of it as well as she could. It was difficult to tell in the darkness inside the lock, but she thought that the pieces looked familiar. She reviewed the memory... yes, it definitely looked familiar. So maybe this would work. But she needed something... Suddenly she raised her hands and patted her own head. Miraculously, there were still a bunch of bobby pins there from her preparations this (was it still this?) morning.  
  
:I don't believe I'm trying this,: she told herself as she pulled one of the bobby pins out of her hair. She bent it straight, then used her teeth to pull off the little plastic dots on the ends of the metal that were supposed to keep the pins from stabbing her. :This is insane. I can't believe I'm going to try this.: She kept up that internal monologue as she bent over the cuff attached to her left wrist, trying to angle it so that the maximum light entered the lock itself.   
  
It *was* insane, trying to pick the lock of a handcuff with nothing more than a bobby pin and one fifteen-year old memory of how to do it. But she couldn't just sit here. Searching for the memory had kept her occupied up until now, but if she didn't keep moving forward, she was going to give into hysteria, and she couldn't do that yet. Hysterics were for later.   
  
:Concentrate,: she reminded herself. Thinking about things like that was a very good way to get her thinking about what was going on right now, about her present situation, and she didn't want to think about it. She couldn't afford it. Her parents were coming for her, and she wanted to be ready for them. If she just sat around here...  
  
Click.  
  
Julia started at the sound, then looked down as the cuff fell off her wrist. Despite everything, she felt a grin appearing on her lips. :I don't believe it. I did it.: She got to her feet, rubbing her left wrist and looking down at the handcuffs. She resisted the urge to kick them or do something equally as ridiculous. Instead, she looked around the room once more. There wasn't much to see - four walls, one metal door, the radiator she'd been cuffed to, and a vent in the ceiling.   
  
It was too bad that the ceiling was a good four feet above her head, and that there was nothing to climb on, otherwise the vent would have been a good place to hide, if she could have managed to get it open. But it was too high. Julia turned her attention the hall outside, listening for footsteps, breathing, heartbeats, anything that would tell her if someone was outside. She heard nothing.  
  
Encouraged, Julia headed for the door, ready to try to pick that lock, too. She didn't know if she'd be able to do it, it had to be a lot more complicated then a handcuff, but at least she'd be doing *something*. Anything was better than sitting here and just waiting to either be rescued or killed. She stopped short in front of the door, seeing what she hadn't noticed before.   
  
There wasn't any handle on this side of the door, or a lock. The door could only be opened from the other side. Julia's eyes immediately went to the doorframe, hoping that the hinges were on this side so that maybe she could pry at them or something, but they weren't. :Damn it.: That was it, she couldn't get any farther.   
  
She sagged against the door as the memories she'd been working so hard to suppress surged up to the front of her mind. The worst of them was the one from right before she'd lost consciousness, after they shot her with the darts. She'd never experienced anything like that before, and she hoped that it would never happen again. Even when she lost control of her senses, it was, at worst, only one or two of them. When the dart had hit her, it was like she'd lost control of all of them at once. Now that she thought about it, she could remember the smell of some of the flowers coming from a florist down the street, remember the sound of footsteps echoing against her ears like gunshots, the light coming from the sun which suddenly seemed to be burning into her eyeballs...  
  
:Stop it!: She wasn't going to think about this. She had to think about something else, anything would be better... Julia rested her head against the door, feeling the cool metal against her forehead. :Concentrate on that! Concentrate on anything...: Out of desperation she concentrated on the metal door against her forehead. She could feel - and catalogue - every imperfection in the apparently smooth surface. The sensitivity of her skin drew her mind back to what had happened, of the horrible sensitivity of her skin then, and of her inability to do anything to lessen it. And then, at the end, just before she'd finally blacked out, there had been that white blast. That had somehow been the worst, when she couldn't feel, see, or hear anything but white. It was if her body had gone numb, and she'd gone blind and deaf at the same moment, but instead of everything being dark and quiet, it had been white and far too loud.   
  
:No...: Julia squeezed her eyes shut. She couldn't deal with this right now. She just couldn't, not on top of everything else. Her hands clenched into fists. :Stop it!: she yelled at herself. She was dangerously close to really losing it, and then she'd lose control of her powers again, and it would just make everything worse, and then she'd get another one of those white blasts, again...  
  
:No!: She slammed her fist against the door in a gesture of helpless rage. There was a loud creak from the door, and it was enough to shock her out of the downward spiral her thoughts were in.  
  
Opening her eyes, Julia looked up at the door where her fist had struck it. There was a nice fist-sized indentation in the metal, now. :That's impossible...: Metal (unless it was very soft, like gold) didn't dent when you hit it. And if it was really soft, you wouldn't be using it to make a door out of. Slowly, Julia moved her hand to gently touch the metal indentation, and her fingertips confirmed what her eyes were telling her. There was a dent in the solid metal door. She could even see how her fist fit into the indentation, how the lines of it fit around her fist... she curled her fingers into a fist again and placed it against the indentation. It fit perfectly.  
  
With a gasp, Julia pushed herself away from the door, stumbling backwards several steps. She looked from her own hand to the door and back to her hand again, as if that would explain the impossibility in front of her. You couldn't just dent a metal door with your fist, not even with a good deal of adrenaline. It didn't work that way.  
  
But she'd just done it. Whatever was real and made sense... it didn't really matter, because she'd just done it. She didn't know how, or why, or anything, really, except that she had just done it. And if her fist could dent the door... Julia took a quick look around the room, judging the distance between herself and the door. After a moment's thought, she backed up to the wall, putting the maximum distance between her and the door. :I can't believe I'm going to try this,: she told herself. :This is completely insane. There is no way this is going to work. I'll be lucky if I just break my collarbone.: She didn't give herself a chance for any other doubts, this was insane enough on it's own without her mind listing all of the reasons it was stupid and crazy and what would happen to her if her insane hunch didn't play out. She ran at the door as fast as she could.   
  
A second later her shoulder slammed into the door, causing a sharp pain to spike through her arm. She had just enough time to wonder if she really had gone crazy and had just managed to break her collarbone, before there was the shriek of tortured metal and a loud bang as the door crashed open when the lock gave way. Julia stumbled out into the hall, catching herself before she crashed into the wall on the other side.  
  
:Or maybe I'd just crash *through* the wall,: she thought, turning to observe the wreckage of what had previously been a door. It was barely recognizable any more, twisted and bend around the large dent in the center where her shoulder had hit it, and barely hanging off the hinges on one side. On the other side, she saw that she had actually shoved the bolt of the lock right through the wall. She'd just plowed through a large, solid, metal door, with only a little bit of soreness in her shoulder to show for it. And even as she thought about it, the soreness disappeared.  
  
Somewhere in the distance, she heard shouting as someone obviously heard the noise she'd made breaking out of her room. She had to get out of here. Julia took one last look at the door. :I think I'm going to have a rather large breakdown after this is over,: she decided, and then turned and fled down one of the halls.   
  
  
----------  
  
  
"Find her! We don't have any leverage without her!" Stevens snapped.   
  
"But sir..."  
  
"I don't care what she is! Shoot her if you have to, just don't kill her! I want you to find the little freak now!"  
  
Two hallways down, behind a closed door, Julia fought to control her breathing. It sounded incredibly loud to her, loud enough that they couldn't possibly miss it, but that might have been because she was listening in on a conversation so far away. She carefully toned down her hearing, not wanting to risk losing control now. Then she sat with her back against the wall, right next to the door. :The little freak...: She shook her head slightly, trying to dispel the memory. She couldn't afford to worry about that right now. And she could have gone a long time without knowing that they thought she was dangerous enough to require shooting in order to control her.   
  
Since she'd escaped from the room where they'd kept her, Julia had been doing her best to stick to her plan of hiding from them. She actually had spent a short time in the vents, after scrambling up to one from a table, before they figured out what she was doing. After they did, they started closing off the vents, one-by-one, and she'd only barely managed to get out of them before she was trapped entirely. Since then she'd been slipping from room to room, staying away from them and avoiding their clumsy search by moving into rooms they'd already searched. The fact that she could always hear what they were planning helped, too. By her reckoning, she'd been loose and staying ahead of them for a little over four hours.  
  
But now Stevens had apparently grown a brain stem, because he'd gathered all of his men together and had organized them so that they could perform a decent search of the building. So far she'd managed to stay ahead of them only because they were so unorganized. An organized search was not a good thing. Sooner or later one of them was going to find her, no matter how careful she was. And then... :Shoot her if you have to.:   
  
Surrendering wasn't really an option for her anymore. She might have been able to at the beginning of this, but by now they were really frightened of her. Although they wouldn't admit it out loud, she could hear it in their voices, in their racing heartbeats as they searched the rooms. Even if she turned herself in, she didn't trust that they wouldn't try to kill her. Even if she somehow made it to Stevens, who obviously wanted her alive, at least for now, she didn't trust that he wouldn't still shoot her. After all, she'd proven that she could get out of cuffs and batter her way through doors - she doubted that they had anything stronger to hold her.  
  
Julia was trying very hard not to think about what she'd done. If she did, she might freeze again, and she couldn't afford that. More importantly, she couldn't deal with that, with knowing that she froze and being trapped in her own mind again. If they caught her, whatever they'd do, she'd be locked up again, with nothing to think about except what had happened, about her own senses and that white blast, and....  
  
Julia shook her head once more, trying to clear it. That last thought string was almost incoherent. Not a good sign. She needed to focus. They were coming this way.  
  
Hearing footsteps running down the hall, Julia froze, pressing herself into the wall. She heard one set of footsteps run on past the room, but another stopped not far away, and seconds later she heard a door open and close. :That was next door,: she thought, her heart threatening to pound it's way out of her chest.   
  
Her eyes were wide as she tracked the sound of the footsteps. She heard the door across the hall open; then, after several long seconds, she heard it close. The footsteps drew nearer. She had to make a decision. As the door beside her swung open, she swallowed.   
  
And when the tip of a gun started to enter the room, Julia let her body react without thinking. She waited the fraction of the second necessary for the rest of the gun to clear the threshold, then jumped at the man, pushing the gun to the side with her right hand, and punching him as hard as she could with her left. He'd never even gotten into the room, so his head snapped around and then he slammed heavily into the doorpost, causing the door to slam into the wall. The door made a loud (to her ears) clanging sound, and he slumped to the ground.   
  
Julia stared down at him for a second, almost afraid to breathe, her body still in a fighting stance in case he got up. But he didn't move at all, except for the slow and steady rise and fall of his back. He'd dropped the gun when Julia cast a glance up and down the hall, looking and listening for any sign that someone had heard what she'd done, but she found none. After a moment's thought, she grabbed the unconscious body by the ankle and dragged him into the room, closing the door afterwards. She had a few minutes until he didn't report in. By then she'd better be somewhere else, which meant figuring out where, exactly, she could go, now that there was a hole in their net. She glanced down at the body at her feet, and noticed something attached to his belt. Grimacing, she reached down and pulled free the small communicator. Turning it on, she heard nothing for several seconds, then someone checked in that his guard was clear. He sounded bored. :This might help.: She shoved it in her pocket.   
  
She highly doubted that he had anything else on him that would be of use to her (say, a map of the location), and even if he had, she didn't think she could stomach searching him right now. When she pulled the door open, it struck something on the floor. Looking down, she hesitated. His gun was still lying on the floor where it had fallen. She swallowed convulsively. After what she'd found out about her fathers, she had taken the time to look up guns. The two in the attic had been fully functional, as she'd expected. Because of her research, she did know how to operate one, even though she knew there was a big difference between knowing something in principle and actually being able to do it. But still...  
  
:I don't know how long he's going to be out,: she suddenly realized. :And if he wakes up, he's going to take the gun and bring it with him again. And soon - I hope - Daddy and Tousan will get here. And if he has a gun, he'll try to use it against them.: Taking a deep breath, Julia gingerly picked the gun up off the floor, holding it by the grip. She immediately poked the safety to on, checked to make sure that she'd done it correctly three times, and only then did she stick it in the back of her pants, arranging her blouse so that it wouldn't be immediately obvious.   
  
She stepped out the door and closed it. Unlike the room they'd kept her in, this one had a handle on both sides. Julia pulled the bobby-pin out of her pocket and jammed it in the lock. Hopefully that would make it more difficult for him to get it open. She started off down the hall.  
  
It was exceedingly uncomfortable, wearing a gun there. She'd thought, from what she'd seen of her parents in the old records, that it would at least be moderately comfortable. After all, both of her parents had stored their weapons there, primarily, for more than a year. But as she walked along, listening intently for any footsteps or voices, Julia was acutely aware of the butt of the gun digging into the small of the back, of the barrel poking her butt. She paused and glanced back every thirty seconds to make sure that the waistband of her pants hadn't somehow managed to turn the safety off. Even though she was quite sure that was a ridiculous fear, she couldn't stop herself from checking every thirty seconds.  
  
When she finally made it to another room that she judged was safe to rest in, Julia was a nervous wreck. She pulled the gun out and looked at it. It wasn't the same model as the guns she'd found in the attic, and it didn't look as well-cared-for, either. Of course, the guns she'd seen before had been in a box in the attic for over a dozen years, whereas this one was in use, but she had a feeling that even during the war neither of her parents would have let their weapons get in a state of disrepair.   
  
It was heavy. She didn't remember her parents' weapons being this heavy, but maybe that was because they hadn't had the clip in then. But she didn't think that it was just the physical difference. When she'd picked up the gun in the attic, it had just been a piece of machinery, a startling one, but not something that would ever kill someone. Now... here... the gun in her hand could kill someone. It scared her. Julia was seriously considering leaving here, hiding it someplace they wouldn't find it and divesting herself of the danger and responsibility it implied.   
  
She was glancing around, considering it, when she heard the unmistakable sound of gunfire. First just one or two shots, then more... Her heart leaped back into her throat. :That's them. It has to be. They're here for me.: Jamming the gun back into her pants, she slid the door open and stuck her head cautiously out into the hall. She didn't see anyone, but after a second she heard voices. "Quick, check these halls!" someone shouted above the thunder of the guns.   
  
Julia ran, the gun digging into her back with every step. She was running towards the guns, but she intended to stop long before she reached the source of the gunfire, but right then, all she was thinking about was staying ahead of the searchers. She couldn't let them find her now that she was so close to being safe.   
  
When she thought she was clear of the searchers, Julia started looking for somewhere to hide until it was all over. She had no desire to get any closer to the fighting then she already was. As she walked by a door that she knew led to another hall (she'd run through it before at some point), Julia heard low voices echoing down the hall. The voices were familiar.   
  
"This one's clear. Any sign of her yet?"  
  
"Iie."  
  
:Daddy? Tousan?: Without thinking Julia threw the door open.  
  
And came face-to-face with the wrong end of a gun.  
  
"Well, finally found you," Stevens said with a smirk. He glanced nervously behind him. "Come on, we're leaving."  
  
  
----------  
  
  
Julia couldn't believe what was going on. She'd been so close to freedom, and then... Stevens had handed over a pair of handcuffs and demanded that she put them on, and was now dragging her all over the building, wherever they were, trying to find a way out beyond the increasing numbers of people in Preventer uniforms milling around. He'd even taken her up a flight of stairs, but there seemed to be Preventers up here, too. He was becoming more desperate, and there was an odd look in his eyes that she didn't like - something like a cornered dog.   
  
She would have been trying to figure out how to get away, but she was too busy trying to stay on her feet as he dragged around by one arm. It wasn't easy to run with your hands tied behind your back, and every time she stumbled or hesitated, he jerked her back to her feet and either hit her with his free hand or threatened her with the gun. She could barely even feel the blows, but it was enough to keep her off-balance, and she couldn't do anything while he had the gun, anyway. The gun she'd stolen was still poking her in the back, and she was scared that he'd find it and get... um... more angry.  
  
:Although more angry isn't necessarily a problem right now,: she thought, observing the look on his face. She couldn't believe she was thinking like this. The numbness was still there, but all of a sudden her head had started making random comments like this. It was absolutely ridiculous.   
  
Stevens tried a door, found that it was locked, and cursed at it several times before he drew his foot back and kicked it. :Yeah, that's going to work,: Julia found herself thinking, just before he shot out the lock with the gun. :Overkill much?: Maybe not, it had gotten the door open, and that was one less bullet in the gun. Julia was keeping a careful count of how many bullets he used. She wasn't sure exactly how many were in his clip, but if it was the same model as the gun she'd stolen, she had a good idea of how many it could hold. So far he'd shot three bullets at Preventers they ran into, to drive them off, one at the panel that controlled the elevator (she was still trying to figure out why he'd done that), and now one more at the door.   
  
A jerk on her arm sent her stumbling and brought her out of her thoughts. He pulled her down another hall, and then stopped short in front of a wall. Without any warning, Julia barely managed to stop from ramming full speed into the wall. As it was, the effort of trying to stop short with her hands behind her threw her off-balance again, and she fell. He glanced down at her, cursed, and hauled her back to her feet by the first thing he grabbed - which happened to be her hair.  
  
"Ow!" she shouted, unable to stop herself. She'd pretty much gotten used to the occasional hits, but this was different. It was more from surprise than pain, anyway.  
  
"Shut up!" he growled, shaking the hand that held her hair.  
  
Julia grimaced, but kept her mouth closed this time. :Idiot psychopath,: she thought irritably. And then she had to bite back a little bit of laughter that threatened to bubble out of her. Well, now she knew why her father had continually cursed and yelled those ridiculous comments at the Oz soldiers during the war. It might be insane, but it was good for stress relief. And it was better, sort of, than just moving and reacting.  
  
Then her attention was caught by Stevens, who was examining the wall very carefully while he kept the gun trained on her. Maybe he really had gone nuts.   
  
A few seconds later, she found out that he wasn't nuts when a large portion of the wall swung open. :Shit. Secret door.: That was very bad. Extremely bad. If he closed the door behind them, the Preventers would never know to look for it, would never know where they'd gone. Stevens glanced at her. "Inside. Now."  
  
Julia shook her head slightly and backed up a step. A flash of rage passed over his face, and he seized the back of her neck and hauled her forward, through the door and into what turned out to be a small shuttle bay. :Shit.:   
  
He let go of her neck and started to turn back towards the door, but froze when he heard a voice say, "Freeze!"  
  
Julia had often wondered what the Oz soldiers had seen on Daddy or Tousan's faces when they were fighting. Now she knew, and she wished she'd been kept wondering. Both of her parents were standing at the opposite end of the hanger, near the bodies of some of the goons who'd abducted her. They each held a gun aimed precisely at Stevens. And the looks on their faces...   
  
There was a sort of mad fire in Daddy's eyes, as if he were almost-but-not-quite out of control, just on the edge of insanity. There was a broad grin on his face as well, but it wasn't any expression that she'd seen before. It looked sort of fixed in place, as if he was gritting his teeth instead of smiling, gritting his teeth to keep from crying out. Tousan was expressionless, as usual, but his eyes... they just looked dead, as if having to carry a gun again was doing something to his soul. But the most frightening thing about the pair was the total lack of fear or nervousness on their faces. Even the Preventers had been nervous - she'd seen it in their faces the few times she'd seen them, heard it in their voices at a distance. There was no sign of that on either of her parents' faces. Just a sort of grim confidence, as if they knew that this was what they'd been made for and that no one could stop them. It was the inevitability they managed to convey that was so frightening.  
  
Stevens was actually standing behind her, and he spun back towards her, using her own body as a shield as he raised a gun to her head. She saw both of her parent's fingers tighten convulsively on the triggers of the guns, but they didn't actually pull the triggers. Although she was pretty sure that they could have hit him, even from that distance, without touching her, she figured that they didn't want to risk him shooting her as he went down.   
  
"If you shoot me, she dies," Stevens said, confirming her observation.  
  
"Let her go," Tousan ordered in a flat voice.   
  
"Oh, no, that's not the way this works," Stevens said, his eyes flickering back and forth between them and one of the shuttles. "Drop your weapons, or I'll kill her."   
  
Her parents exchanged an indecipherable look. "Stevens, you hurt one hair on your head and you'll be begging me to kill you," Daddy said softly.   
  
Julia winced as the gun was jammed into the back of her head. "Do you really want to watch her die?" he asked. "Drop your weapons now!"  
  
They both dropped their weapons. Some of that unholy light had begun to fade from Daddy's eyes, and now he just looked terrified as he looked at her. He moved his lips silently. Julia wasn't an expert on lip reading, but he was taking pains to make sure he was speaking clearly and slowly. :"Everything's going to be OK.": Julia wasn't so certain, but she tried to smile back at him.  
  
"Kick your weapons away and come over here!" Stevens ordered.  
  
Again they did as they were ordered, watching him like they were waiting for a moment of weakness in which to strike. They probably were.   
  
As they walked towards him, Stevens shifted his aim from Julia's head to Daddy's. Julia saw him clench his fists slightly when the gun was shifted towards him, but he gave no other outward sign of nervousness. If anything, he seemed relieved that the gun was no longer pointed at her. Julia, on the other hand, was torn. She didn't want the gun pointed at her, but she wasn't any happier with it pointed at members of her family, either. Stevens still had a hand on her neck, keeping her from moving away, but most of his attention was focused on her parents now. A glimmer of an idea began to form in the back of her mind.  
  
"So you're the famous Gundam pilots," Stevens said. "A bit young, aren't you? Were you infants during the war?" No one answered him.  
  
Praying that he didn't notice what she was doing, Julia began to maneuver her cuffed hands so that she could get at the gun which was still stuck in her pants, digging into her back. It was difficult, and especially awkward since she had to be very careful not to brush her arms against Stevens. She couldn't afford to let him know what she was doing.  
  
"Which one of you is the computer expert?" Stevens asked. When neither of them spoke, he grabbed her hair and shook her head sharply. "Which one?!" he demanded. Julia winced involuntarily, then regretted it when she saw both of her parents' faces go slack with shock. That expression was almost immediately replaced by blind rage.   
  
"Me," Tousan grunted. Julia had the gun out of her waistband now. They were pretty close to her now. If she could toss it to one of them, she could probably knock Stevens to the ground long enough for them to get the gun and... stop him, somehow.   
  
"You, huh?" Stevens asked. "Going to be a pain to haul the bunch of you fuckers away without any excess baggage. And I don't need you," he said to Daddy, whose eyes opened wide. "Goodbye."  
  
"NO!" Julia shrieked, her mind suddenly catching up with what was going on. Without thinking, she bent over slightly and slammed her shoulder into Stevens' chest, making him stagger backwards.   
  
There was another shriek of metal as she ripped the chain holding the cuffs together in half, and she automatically clicked the safety on the gun off as she brought it up to face Stevens. "LEAVE HIM ALONE!" she shouted at the top of her lungs.   
  
For a second there was an almost comical expression of surprise on Stevens' face. Then he started to bring his own gun around to face her. Julia had just enough time to see a look of alarm on Tousan's face and to hear Duo-daddy shout, "No!" before she reacted to defend herself.  
  
She pulled the trigger.  
  
Julia didn't have much experience with guns, but she was standing less than three feet away from him. It would have been rather difficult to miss. Her shot hit him in the chest and actually lifted him a little bit off the floor, throwing him backwards. The gun jumped in her hand, and she almost dropped it. There was a mass of blood appearing in the center of his chest, but he was still breathing. As Julia watched, his chest stilled, and she heard his heart stop beating.  
  
:He's dead.:  
  
She retained just enough presence of mind to flick the safety back on before the gun fell from her numbed fingers.   
  
"Julia!" she suddenly found herself enfolded in a pair of incredibly strong arms. It was Daddy, and she could feel his body shaking as he held her. "Why did you do that?!" he demanded angrily, moving back slightly so that she could see his face. He looked absolutely wretched, and there were unshed tears in his eyes. She'd never seen him cry.  
  
"He... he was going to hurt you," she replied miserably.   
  
Daddy shook his head back and forth sadly. "No," he said softly. "You shouldn't have. Not for anything. It wasn't supposed to be like that for you..."  
  
"He was trying to kill..." Julia tried to say, then found herself unable to continue. "Oh, Daddy!" she threw herself at him, sobbing hysterically.  
  
"Oh God, I'm sorry," he said, hugging her again. The two of them sank slowly to the floor, him holding her as if she was a child. "I'm so sorry."  
  
  
  
  
Ok. That last section was almost painful to write. But hey, at least it's not another cliffhanger... :smiles weakly:  
  
In general, this was not a fun section to write. The main character was either absolutely terrified, just bordering on hysterical, or numb throughout most of it, which is just not a pleasant thing to write. (At least not with my writing style.) I'm not sure how I feel about the middle section with Katie. Rest assured that there is a reason she was acting the way she was, at least in my head, but I think it may be confusing for readers. I'm thinking about writing a short (for me) piece from her perspective, after I finish this project, just to explore that a little. I'm also irritated that I had to break the pattern of doing Heero and Duo's section at the end, but it wouldn't have worked as well that way, I think.   
  
On a lighter note, I've decided to rescind my request to not send any death threats. I've decided that they're amusing. The best ones I received last time had, "The walls will drip blood for years," and another one whose reason for not killing me was that she'd never see the end of the story.   
  
Marika 2/10/02 


	13. Part 11

"You don't have to answer that, Julia," Sally told her quickly, then turned back to the idiot Preventer to yell at him some more. She'd been going for twenty minutes strong and showed no signs of stopping. Julia lifted both of her feet onto her chair and wrapped her arms around her knees, wishing that a hole would open up in the ground and swallow her.  
  
Not because of Sally - Sally was doing her best, and without the older woman defending her, Julia probably would have given in to the urge to have a screaming fit a long time ago. It was just the entire situation. Julia couldn't remember the last time she'd felt so profoundly miserable, and this Preventer, on top of all of it...  
  
It had been several hours since... since she'd... :Say it!: she commanded herself. She wasn't going to let herself avoid this one. It had been several hours since she'd killed a man. She still wasn't sure how long she'd just sat on the ground in Daddy's arms, crying. Then the Preventers had come running through the still-open secret door, and Julia had made herself feel even worse by automatically reaching for the gun, which was still on the floor where she'd dropped it. All she could think of was that one of the thugs had managed to get past the Preventers, and were coming after them.   
  
Of course, as soon as she'd seen who it actually was, she'd arrested the movement, but the fact that she'd gone for it in the first place...  
  
Duo-daddy had seen (or felt) the abortive movement, she just knew it, but he hadn't said anything about it. When the Preventers burst in, he simply gathered her up in his arms, like she was a little kid again, and carried her past them without saying a word. They hadn't been particularly happy about that - and since Tousan had followed them, glaring up a storm at anyone who tried to question them, they were left with a hanger and a dead body and no explanations.   
  
It turned out that she'd been held in the basement level of an office building. The building itself housed a perfectly legitimate publishing corporation that had moved in years after the terrorists, and had no idea what the company in the basement had been up to. Needless to say, they were more than a little surprised when a fully armed squad of Preventers showed up, bursting through the door with guns drawn. There had been more stares then Julia wanted to think about when Daddy had carried her out of the elevator, but Tousan's glare had driven off all but the most bold office-workers, and then Daddy found them a small office and had shut the door behind them.  
  
Julia didn't remember much about the next couple of hours, which was probably a good thing. It was still there, the way everything was, but it was slightly distant, removed, like a very old memory, not something that had happened so recently. That was good. She didn't want to think about it.   
  
After a couple of hours, Tousan had had to leave to go deal with some of the Preventers, and a while after that, Wufei had come looking for them. Sally had arrived, and he'd appointed her head doctor on site, over many loud protests by the Preventer doctors who were taking care of the injured Preventers and terrorists. The arguments basically boiled down to the fact that (like most of the rest of the adults she knew) Sally was a reserve member of the Preventers, but not an active member, which meant that all of the doctors thought they should have authority over her. Somehow he'd managed to make it stick, which was why she and Daddy had had as much time alone as they had.  
  
But eventually Wufei had to interrupt them. He said, more kindly than she would have thought possibly, that he was sorry, but she had to be examined by a doctor, it was Preventer policy, especially after a kidnapping.   
  
Julia had never been so grateful to anyone than she was to Sally when she arrived to give her an examination. She didn't know if she could have gotten through this without breaking down if it hadn't been someone she knew. Sally had performed a few preliminary checks on her eyes (to make sure that she wasn't suffering from a concussion), and temperature (to make sure she wasn't in shock). That came as a surprise. That she wasn't, not that Sally was checking.   
  
Then Sally gently told Daddy that it would probably be best if he went outside for the rest of the examination. He hadn't looked happy, but when Sally had also pointed out that he had to be debriefed, and that he might as well get it over with while she was with Julia, he started to get convinced. Sally then promised that she wouldn't leave Julia under any circumstances until he got back. Only then did he glance at Julia. "Is that OK, sweetie?"  
  
Julia didn't really want him to leave, but she understood that he had to be debriefed, and that Sally had to give her an examination. She'd prefer if he wasn't there for that, and she didn't want him to feel guilty for leaving her, so she managed a small smile and a nod. He gave her an encouraging grin that seemed more than a shade off of his usual one, kissed her on the cheek, and then departed.   
  
Sally had asked her to take off her shirt and gave her a quick but thorough examination, determining that she wasn't injured. The scrape on her chin and hands from when she'd been thrown to the floor were already healed, of course, and she hadn't managed to pick up any more injuries since then. As she was putting her shirt back on, Sally asked her first question.  
  
"Julia, I'm very sorry, but I have to ask you this. Did they... try to touch you?"  
  
Julia froze. She could have gone a very long time without thinking of that possibility. Even now her mind was conjuring up possible scenarios where that man... the one who'd hated her so much for breaking his arm... where he'd come up with other ways to hurt her... The thought made her want to throw up all over again.  
  
"Julia?" Sally's voice held more than a bit of alarm in it.  
  
Swallowing, she shook her head. "He... they didn't touch me. I mean, they... I mean, they didn't try... not that," she finished, hanging her head. Immediately she felt an arm around her shoulder, and Sally's hands gently pulled at her until she was leaning against the older woman, resting her head against her shoulder. Some part of her mind wondered if Sally thought she was going to start crying again. Maybe she should, maybe it would make her feel better, but she just couldn't get up the energy to do that. She just felt dead inside, more than anything else. Was this what killing did to people? When you killed, you died inside? How could her parents have stood it? How had they managed to go on, if they felt like this?  
  
"Do you want to talk about it?" Sally asked quietly, stroking her head.   
  
"I... I don't know," Julia said, her voice trembling. She pressed her face harder against Sally's shoulder, ashamed about her lack of control.   
  
"Julia... it's all right to be upset about this," Sally said, as if she'd read her mind. Julia stiffened slightly and sat up straight, wondering how Sally had known.   
  
Sally observed the look on her face and sighed. "Did you know that I was once a doctor for the Alliance?"  
  
Julia had known it, but she'd forgotten. She nodded slightly, trying to recall everything she remembered about Sally during the war. She'd been an Alliance doctor right up until Oz struck and the Alliance basically ceased to exist. Then she'd been a rebel for a while, eventually joining the pilots to fight against White Fang at the end of the war. But she didn't see what that had to do with anything here.  
  
"A lot of the time, I saw kids... young men and women... who were brought in with injuries right after they saw their first combat... A good half of them were in shock from the injuries, but... after a while, I could tell when they actually were in shock from the injuries, and when the reality of what war was had just hit them too hard. It's... a very difficult thing to deal with, killing a person. If you weren't upset right now, I'd be more concerned," she added, an odd note in her voice. "If you want to talk about it, I can listen. Sometimes it helped, a little," Sally said, sounding vaguely guilty that she hadn't been able to help more. "But only if you want."   
  
"What do you want to hear?" Julia asked in a very little voice. "When I..." she trailed off.  
  
"Whatever you want to tell," Sally replied. "If it's easier, start at the beginning."  
  
"You mean when I woke up?"  
  
"That's fine."  
  
"When I woke up..." Julia suddenly trailed off, remembering something. "Scott! Is he all right! They shot him with a dart, too! Is he..."  
  
"He's fine," Sally told her. "It took him quite a few hours to wake up, the drugs they used were very potent, but he'll be fine. He's still a little woozy, but he'll be fine in a few days. He feels awful about not being able to protect you, by the way."  
  
Julia nodded slightly. "It wasn't his fault," she said slowly. She knew that intellectually, but emotionally, it was a little difficult not to be a little angry. After all, he was supposed to be there to prevent exactly what had happened. On the other hand, what could he have done? The dart had hit him and he'd probably been unconscious before he hit the ground, and... :Wait a minute. He's *still* woozy?: There was something very wrong with that. He'd been shot and been instantly unconscious. They'd shot her, and she'd still been awake enough to consider running. In the end, it had taken *three* darts to knock her out, and she didn't feel the least bit woozy now. Granted, she wasn't exactly at her best, and her judgment might be flawed right now, but at least she didn't *feel* woozy.  
  
"So what happened?" Sally's voice pulled her out of her thoughts.   
  
"Oh. When I woke up, I was in this little room..." Julia started talking, explaining as simply as she could what had happened when the man came after her. She cut that part short when she saw the anger in Sally's eyes, and decided to leave out the fact that Stevens had held a gun to her head during the discussion that followed. When she mentioned remembering how to pick locks, that Daddy had taught her when she was little, Sally raised and eyebrow and smiled with amusement, but didn't dispute her statement that she'd remembered something she'd been taught when she was still an infant.   
  
Julia hesitated once again when she got to the part of the story where she had managed to bash through the door, thinking that Sally would think she was exaggerating or outright lying. But when she did, Sally's eyes just opened a little wider, and she asked if Julia's shoulder was really all right. Her heartbeat sped up, and she looked worried. Julia stared at her for several seconds before continuing. Something about Sally's reaction just didn't strike her as right, but she wasn't quite sure what it was.  
  
By the time she got to the end of the story, there were tears in her eyes again, but she swallowed them down, not wanting to break down in front of Sally. Sally didn't say much, she just sat there, stroking Julia's hair and murmuring to her. After a while, she started talking, so that it sounded like she was talking to herself, but after a few minutes, Julia was listening carefully. Sally apparently noticed this, and switched from vague pleasantries to an actual story. She started talking about how she and Wufei had first met. This was another story that Julia had never heard, because like the story of her parents' first meeting, it was so tied up in the war that there was no way to tell it without giving away that at the age of fifteen, Wufei had been intimately involved in the fight.   
  
It turned out that even after Sally couldn't be an Alliance doctor anymore (because there was no Alliance), she couldn't stand not helping people, so she'd joined up with some guerillas who represented what was left of the Alliance. Wufei had saved her and her squad from a bunch of OZ mobile suits, and somehow Sally had convinced him to come back to camp. That came after he'd scolded her and her entire group about how weaklings shouldn't fight.   
  
Julia had had to smile at that, it sounded so typically Wufei. By the end of the story, she was almost feeling semi-normal.  
  
Then the Preventer had arrived. He'd never bothered to introduce himself, and Julia couldn't bring herself to care. He was waving a sheaf of papers at her and demanding to question her from the moment he came in the door, and Sally had immediately jumped between the two of them, telling the man that he had no right to question her without one of her parents present. He replied that she could act as a guardian, and they'd been at it since then.   
  
:Where are Daddy and Tousan?: she wondered, flinching as the Preventer let out an especially loud squawk at something Sally had said about him that was highly uncomplimentary. She'd be extremely surprised if everyone within a mile radius hadn't heard the shouting by now. Certainly they'd be here any minute now, to make him go away...  
  
"What is the meaning of this!" a third voice demanded, not particularly loudly, but somehow carrying over both Sally and the Preventer's shouts. Julia's head snapped up at the unexpected intrusion, because it wasn't either of her parents or Wufei.  
  
Standing in the doorway was a rather tall, incredibly handsome man with very light hair and ice-blue eyes. He looked to be around her parents' age, and was wearing a Preventer uniform, along with a distinctly unamused expression. His sharp eyes flickered from the Preventer, to Sally, to Julia herself, and then back to the Preventer. Julia noticed that Sally had suddenly gone very still, and wondered at it. She found her attention drawn back to the tall man. He seemed familiar, but she couldn't think why. She knew that she'd never met him before...  
  
"Now..." he said quietly, when they both fell silent. "What is going on here?" He had a very soft voice, almost like he was whispering, or growling, and as soon as he spoke she knew who he was.  
  
Despite herself, she let out a little squeak and pressed herself back into the chair, trying to put as much distance between them as possible. "You're Zechs Marquise!"   
  
Now he turned to stare at her, eyes widening in surprise. "Who are you?" he demanded sharply, and Julia flinched. This man had been both of her parents' enemy during the war, tried to kill them numerous times, and then tried to wipe out all life on Earth. She had a feeling that he wouldn't have been a Preventer if he hadn't changed since then, but still...  
  
Sally stepped partially between them, offering Julia some protection and support. "This is Julia Maxwell-Yuy," she announced, placing a hand on Julia's shoulder.  
  
If it was possible, his eyes got even wider. "You mean she's their..." he trailed off, staring at Julia as if she'd grown two heads when Sally nodded affirmatively.   
  
"It's all right," Sally murmured to her, moving closer and putting an arm around her shoulder to give her a slight hug.   
  
Zechs seemed to realize how much he was frightening her, and actually took a step back to give her some space. He turned to face the Preventer. "What is going on here?" he asked softly.  
  
"I need to ask the girl some questions. We have some things that are absolutely inexplicable, and she's the only one who has the answers. But that... that woman refuses to let me speak with her!" he finally exploded, gesturing at Sally, who smiled grimly.   
  
"Inexplicable things," Zechs repeated dryly.  
  
The Preventer seemed to sense that he did not have Zechs' support, and gestured wildly towards the door. "The room she was kept in had a door of solid steal six inches thick! It was dented in the middle and practically ripped off it's hinges. Do you know of anything that can do that?"  
  
"Not off-hand," Zechs replied in exactly the same tone, glancing once again at Julia. Then he transferred his gaze to Sally, who suddenly stiffened. Julia could feel the tension vibrating through her body, because of the way Sally was holding her, and she actually tore her eyes away from Zechs to glance up at Sally. Her jaw was clenched tightly shut, and she looked... scared? Very nervous, at least. Why was she so nervous?  
  
Zechs was staring at Sally now, and Julia was certain that she saw something pass between the two adults, although she wasn't sure what. Apparently Zechs didn't know either, because his brows furrowed in confusion. Then Sally swallowed and nodded her head slightly towards Julia. Zechs' eyes opened wide, and he stared at her for another moment before turning back to the Preventer.   
  
Julia glanced from Sally to Zechs and back again, now confused herself. She knew that Sally had just somehow told Zechs that she was responsible for the ruined door. But what was confusing was why - it seemed like she was desperately afraid that the Preventer would find out what Julia had done. Why? It wasn't...  
  
:Wait a second, did he say six inches of solid steel?: Julia's mind suddenly caught up with what the Preventer had said. She felt all the blood drain from her face. :It couldn't be... it can't have been... there's no way that I could have broken a door like that, it's physically impossible...:  
  
"Preventer O'Ryan," Zechs announced after a glance at the name tag on his uniform. "I will be taking care of this situation. You are dismissed."  
  
Preventer O'Ryan turned a rather odd shade of red that clashed badly with his uniform. "Who the hell do you think you are?" he demanded hoarsely.  
  
"I'm Preventer Wind," Zechs replied smoothly, and Julia saw O'Ryan's eyes widen with recognition. She hadn't heard of Preventer Wind, but apparently Zechs was pretty high up in the Preventer hierarchy. "Any complaints about my handling of the case may be referred to Lady Une. Is that acceptable?" his tone implied that if it wasn't, that was too bad, because he was taking over the case anyway.  
  
"Uh... yes sir!" the Preventer stuttered, giving Zechs a hasty salute. He gave Sally and Julia one last look, then scampered out the door, shutting it behind him.   
  
"Mind explaining what that was about?" Zechs said to Sally after a few seconds.  
  
Sally stiffened again and gave a minute shake of her head, flicking her eyes towards Julia. Alarms immediately went off in Julia's head. :She knows something that she doesn't want me to know. And it has to do with what happened to the door.: That thought led to another, even less pleasant. :She knows something about me that she doesn't want me to know.: A quiet rage began to build in Julia. She still wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but if it involved her, she had a right to know!   
  
Suddenly the door opened again and both of her parents burst through. Daddy immediately moved to give her another hug, but Tousan froze at the sight of Zechs. "What's he doing here?" he snarled, looking at Sally.  
  
"I don't know," she said, shaking her head.  
  
"Mrs. Chang did not call me here," Zechs said mildly. "I heard the shouting and came to investigate."  
  
"And what the hell are you doing on Earth?" Daddy demanded, putting himself partially between Julia and Zechs, as if he wasn't sure whether he'd have to protect her from attack. "Last I heard you were still stationed on Mars."  
  
Zechs frowned slightly. "By my own choice," he pointed out sharply. "And I got an urgent communiqué ten hours ago, ordering me to Earth to deal with a serious problem. I was instructed to come here directly from the spaceport, and I just arrived. I was not aware that you were involved in any way whatsoever. In fact, I wasn't even aware that you had a daughter until just a few minutes ago," he said, giving Julia a curious glance.  
  
"Yeah, well, since you said that you didn't plan on coming back to Earth or the colonies anytime in the near future, we didn't think it would be an issue," Daddy said. "It has been over fifteen years."  
  
Zechs managed to look rueful, guilty, amused, and irritated all at the same time as he nodded. "Fair enough."  
  
There was a long moment of awkward silence, then Daddy asked, "How's Noin?"   
  
"Well enough. She'll be disappointed that she missed seeing you. She was talking about taking some time off to come here to visit, if my work didn't keep me too busy."  
  
"Let us know if she does, I'd like to see her again," Daddy said, sounding for all the world as if this was a normal conversation and like he hadn't been ready to tear Zechs apart limb-from-limb a few seconds earlier.  
  
Julia unconsciously reached for Duo-daddy, pulling him closer. He squeezed her quickly, then turned so that she was facing Zechs directly. "Zechs, this is our daughter, Julia. Julia, this is Zechs Marquise."  
  
"Yeah, I know," Julia said softly, holding out her hand and shaking Zechs'.   
  
"I go by Preventer Wind now," he said in mild reproach.   
  
"Sorry," Daddy said with a slight grimace. "So what happened?" he asked, directing his question at Sally.   
  
"A Preventer had some questions for Julia about what happened to her when she was captured," Sally said, and Julia noticed that Sally appeared tense again. But why? It wasn't as if Julia wasn't going to tell her parents, and it seemed like they trusted (sort of) Zechs. Besides, he had already protected her.   
  
"About what?" Tousan asked calmly, but Julia saw him take in Sally's nervousness with a flicker of his eyes.  
  
"He mentioned something about a door," Zechs said when neither Sally nor Julia said anything. "A solid steel door that had been... mangled," he continued, looking sharply at Julia.   
  
She, however, was looking was watching both of her parents, and saw both of them stiffen with ill-concealed alarm. Then they both glanced guiltily at her, as if to see if she'd noticed their reaction. She stared straight back at them. After a long awkward moment that seemed to stretch out into infinity, Tousan made an indecipherable grunt and said, "Arigato, Zechs. I will speak to you later. We must get our daughter home."  
  
"Completely understandable," Zechs replied smoothly without bothering to correct him on the issue of names again. He stared at her closely, though, as he spoke, as if trying to decipher some puzzle. Then his eyes widened slightly, as if in recognition, and his eyes traveled from her to her parents and back again rapidly. He opened his mouth slightly, and Daddy stiffened even more, while Tousan gave a very slight shake of his head. Only a person who'd lived with him for as long as she had would have caught it, but Zechs' mouth snapped shut, and he raised an eyebrow questioningly, glancing briefly towards her. Tousan's lips thinned slightly, and Zechs blinked.  
  
"I'd better report in," he murmured, then excused himself, glancing once more at her as he left.  
  
Julia, who had been extremely frustrated that she couldn't decode whatever it was her parents and Zechs were talking about, suddenly realized something. :They're all talking about me!: she thought with a growing sense of outrage. :They all know something about me, even Zechs! And they're trying to hide it from me!: She wasn't sure what made her angrier, that they would do such a thing, or that they thought they could hide it from her and have a conversation about it right over her head at the same time!  
  
She was dimly aware of Daddy's hands on her shoulders, guiding her out the door and through the mass of Preventers, local police, and newspeople that were crowded around the outside of the building and to a waiting car.  
  
It had something to do with that door. Every time anyone mentioned it in her presence, they all got very tense. The Preventer had said that it had been six inches of solid steel, but he must have been mistaken, it couldn't have been that, she never would have been able to break through something like that. Adrenaline could help, but it could only account for so much.  
  
Julia suddenly had a horrible thought - :What if he wasn't wrong?:   
  
The thought made her heart begin to race, but she controlled herself. :All right, let's think this through. If he wasn't wrong, if it was that thick...: Julia shook her head slightly. That was impossible. She couldn't have broken through something like that. *Tousan* might have been able to do that, but he'd been fairly heavily modified by the doctor that controlled him during the war. So had Daddy, for that matter. If she'd been their actual daughter(impossible as that was), there might have been some chance that she would have inherited their genetic modifications, but they'd adopted her. And if she'd actually been their daughter, they would have told her...  
  
Well, they might not have wanted to. If they had, they would have had to explain why they had genetic modifications, and that would have involved telling her about the Gundams. But if they hadn't told her because of that, then wouldn't they have told her right after she found out about the Gundams? So it wasn't that.   
  
But how could she have broken through the wall?   
  
Suddenly a completely random thought popped into her head. :I've never been sick.: At first she thought that she had to be wrong, that she must have been sick at some time, but she couldn't think of one time she'd ever been sick. She'd had those horrible headaches when she was little, but that wasn't so much a sickness, as a lack of control on her part...  
  
:A lack of control...: She'd never met anyone else who had ever mentioned having to learn the same sorts of exercises that were so ingrained that she didn't even think about it when she performed them any more. She'd always assumed that no one mentioned them because they were as ingrained for them as they were for her, but if they didn't mention them because they didn't need them...  
  
She thought back to the first time she'd walked into the dojo, and known that Sensei wasn't there because she couldn't hear his footsteps or his heartbeat. Now whenever she did that, John joked with her, and asked her how she knew. But the first time he hadn't joked. He'd just stood there, looked confused, and asked her how she knew. She'd told him the truth, that she couldn't hear his breathing or heartbeat, and then he'd laughed. He'd thought that was the joke, and she'd been young, so she hadn't corrected him. She'd forgotten - or made herself forget - that. She tried to remember if she'd ever heard of someone being able to hear heartbeats the way she could, and couldn't think of any instances.  
  
Julia was strong, too. She'd known that, but she'd never really thought about it. It was always just the way things were, but she'd battered down a solid metal door without so much as a bruise to show for it. That wasn't normal. Not human. What the hell was she?  
  
And her parents had known. There was no way that they couldn't have. They were the ones who'd taught her those control exercises, and they were the ones who were hiding something from her now.   
  
The anger building in her gut upped a notch.   
  
Julia sat in silence the rest of the ride home, not wanting the Preventer who was driving them to overhear the conversation coming. When they got home, she climbed out of the car and walked inside the house without saying a word to anyone. She heard Daddy thanking the driver, then they followed her inside, closing the door. There were still some signs that there had been a lot of people in the living room, although some effort had been made in cleaning it up.   
  
"Julia?" Daddy asked softly, knowing her well enough to realize that her silence in the car ride hadn't been because of shock.  
  
Julia clenched her hands in a fist and looked down at them, then to the wall in front of her, then back down to her fists. Her logical mind knew that she couldn't punch through the wall, knew that she'd just injure herself. Teenage girls didn't do things like that. She took a deep breath and refused to believe what she 'knew'. She put an image of the door after she'd finished with it in the front of her mind, and concentrated on it. :If I can do that, I can do this.: She drew back her fist and punched. Her hand went into the wall, and she felt it emerge on the other side. She stood there and stared at it for a second, then glanced at both of her parents, noticing with satisfaction that they'd both gone pale. Carefully she pulled her hand back through the hole she'd made and examined it for signs of damage. Not so much as a scrape, and when she wiggled her fingers experimentally, she didn't feel any pain.  
  
She turned to look at her parents and raised her dust-covered hand. "What. The. Hell. Am. I."  
  
They glanced at each other, but before either of them could say anything she spoke again. "No. Don't give me files, or tapes, or books. I want you to tell me yourselves what I am, and why you lied to me all this time!" Her voice rose into something close to a shriek on her last words, and she fought for control. Lately her senses always went out of control when she got excited, and she wasn't going to let them go crazy now when she was about to find out why.  
  
For a second it looked like Daddy was about to protest the lying comment, but after a second his head just dropped, as if all the fight had gone out of him. "Before the war, the five of us underwent some genetic manipulation to allow us to fly the Gundams. They were too powerful for normal humans to control, the rapid changes in acceleration, the response-time necessary, the amount of knowledge we had to absorb... when we started out all of us were tough, quick, and brilliant. By the time they finished..." he shook his head slightly. "We were..."  
  
"Adequate for the task," Tousan finished the thought.   
  
Duo-daddy closed his eyes for a second, looking pained, then continued. "During the war they were controlling us. J - Heero's controller - died in the final battle, and the rest of them disappeared. We never knew what happened to them. After the war... well, we were all trying to adjust to the idea of peace. Then Mariemeaia came, and things were so crazy. And then we were trying to adjust, again... somehow it just kept getting pushed back, and we never got around to checking up on what they were doing...  
  
"Then Une called us to Preventer headquarters. We were all active members of the Preventers back then, although only Wufei lived on Earth. The rest of us they called in for the big stuff. Heero and I had just bought a salvage yard on L2." His eyes glazed slightly, as if he was lost in the memory. After a moment he shook his head slightly and continued.  
  
"Anyway, the Preventers finally had gotten around to looking up the doctors. And they..." he trailed off again, closing his eyes. For a second it seemed like he couldn't continue, then he did. "They were arrested for breaking most of the bans on genetic experimentation. Once the war was over, we weren't taking orders from them anymore... but they couldn't stop. So they took our DNA, our changed DNA from after they finished with the modifications, and they picked and chose from all of us, trying to create the perfect soldier again. Upgrades on the originals," he said, gesturing to himself and Heero.   
  
He swallowed again and looked straight at her. "Most of their... experiments... didn't survive more than a few weeks. It was better that way. But two of the... experiments... did not die, were, for all intents and purposes, normal human babies. Babies created from our DNA. Une wanted to know..." he trailed off.  
  
"You're saying... you're saying that... I was one of those experiments?" Julia asked slowly, feeling all of the blood drain from her face. Daddy nodded. "Who was the other?" she asked sharply, then the answer came to her. "It's Katie, isn't it?" Another nod.   
  
"So... I... you..." Julia just couldn't seem to get her brain to operate.  
  
"We adopted you, dropped out of the Preventers, and all of the files on what the doctors had done were sealed," Tousan told her, finally picking up the narrative. "We were going to tell you, especially after you found out about us," he told her. "We were just waiting for you to graduate."  
  
That snapped her out of her daze. "You were going to tell me?!" she said angrily. "Do you have any idea... I thought I was going crazy!" she yelled. "I keep losing control of everything, and I thought that it was my fault! I thought that one day I'd lose it completely and go blind and deaf and crazy!" She felt her eyes start to become sensitive, and immediately reigned back on her emotions, fighting to bring her treacherous senses back under her control. Surprisingly, it worked, better than it ever had before.   
  
Both of her parents were staring at her with nearly identical expressions of horror and guilt. "God, honey, I'm sorry! We didn't know..." Daddy started to say, but she cut him off.  
  
"What did they do to me?" she asked in a flat voice. "You said that they used your changed DNA, and that they were trying to make a perfect soldier. What did they... how did they make me?" It was difficult to keep her voice flat for that last part, but she managed.   
  
"You have all the same enhancements that we received, although to a greater degree," Tousan told her. "You're strong, how strong, we don't know, but you're stronger than either of us."  
  
"You don't know?"  
  
"There was no way to test you without making you suspicious."  
  
"Fine. Keep going," she said shortly.  
  
"All of your senses are also enhanced, as is your ability to heal. You already know you're a genius, we don't know how much of that they're responsible for, and how much is because of us," Tousan admitted. "You were born with immunity to every disease they could think of, including a few that have been eliminated for several hundred years, and you have an immune system that will ensure you never get sick," he told her. "The same as us."  
  
"And what about the headaches?" she asked sharply. "Where are they from?"  
  
"The human mind is only designed to process so much information. Your senses can give you too much to deal with, and the result is a sort of overload," Daddy told her. "We had to deal with it too, when we were first changed. You have to learn to shut out extraneous information. But it wasn't as bad for us, because we were older, and we understood what was going on, and the changes weren't as great. That was what we taught you when you were little, the concentration exercises are designed to train your mind to filter out extraneous information."  
  
"And when I get emotional, or over-excited, I lose control of one or more, which leads to the bright flashes, which makes it worse," Julia worked it out on her own. "Is that it?"  
  
"Yes," Daddy said, at the same time as Tousan said, "As far as we know."  
  
"I see," Julia replied, inwardly amazed at how calm she sounded. "I'm going to my room now," she announced. "And then I'm leaving." She stared walking towards the stairs.  
  
"Julia..." Daddy started to reach out towards her as she passed, and she snatched her hand out of his grasp.  
  
"Don't touch me!" she hissed, letting her control slip for a second. "Don't you dare! You had no right to conceal this from me, not after the headaches started, and not now! This isn't about your past, it's mine. It's my life! It is me! You had no right to hide that from me! Stay the hell away from me!" She turned and fled up the stairs to her room before she lost control of herself and either started crying or physically attacked one of them.  
  
Once there she busied herself shoving a couple of changes of clothes in a bag. She then found all of the money she had stored in her room and shoved it into her pants. As long as she kept moving, she didn't have to think about her parents' betrayal, didn't have to think about how hurt she was, didn't have to think at all.   
  
Her parents. All her life she'd wondered what her birth parents were like, all the time not knowing that she was actually living with them. Well, with two of them. Technically, all five of the Gundam pilots were her birth parents. Actually, none of them were, because she had never been born, she'd been grown in some test tube. An experiment.   
  
The thought was almost enough to start her crying again, and she'd done enough of that already. :Don't think about that. Don't think at all,: she told herself, pulling off the clothes she'd been wearing since she'd been kidnapped. She never wanted to see them again. With that thought in mind, she grasped the fabric of her shirt in both hands and pulled. It tore as easily as paper.   
  
She spent the next few minutes reducing her clothes into a pile of fist-sized rags, then got dressed again. She pulled on a jacket, picked up her bag, and walked out into the hall.  
  
Both of her parents were still standing in the living room, and she had to walk past them to get to the front door. She took a moment to steel herself, then walked into the living room. She could tell from their racing heartbeats that she had them very upset. Well, good.  
  
"Julia..." Daddy trailed off as she ignored him completely, walking past him towards the door. Tousan actually stepped in front of her, blocking the way, but she glared at him without speaking until he stepped out of the way, a hurt look on his face. She got to the front door, opened it, stepped outside, and closed the door on her parents.  
  
  
---------  
  
  
Julia dropped her bag on the floor, keeping hold of the strap with one hand, and stared dully into space. :If he says no...: Julia closed her eyes and swallowed. :Then I'll just have to sleep on the streets.: She'd survive. It wouldn't be pleasant, but she'd survive. The thought made a bit of hysterical laughter bubble up in her throat, but she forced it back down. Of course she'd survive. She was a genetically engineered freak. She could stay out all night in a blizzard and not have to worry about catching a cold. And God help anyone who tried to attack her.  
  
It had been six hours since she'd walked out of her house, and three hours since it had started raining. It was still early enough in the spring that it still got cold sometimes, and someone had decided that today would be a good day for that. Julia had been so caught up in her thoughts that she hadn't even noticed the rain until she was already mostly soaked. After that, it didn't seem worth trying to get in under cover, which had lead to her wandering around by herself with the rain pounding down on her for a little over three hours. She hadn't minded much at the time, but now she was soaked to the bone and freezing, and even if it wouldn't kill her, she was beginning to look at that as good option.   
  
"Julia?" Her head snapped up as her name was called. She saw Richard slowly making his way down the hall towards her.   
  
"Richard," she said, and was horrified to hear her own voice crack. She swallowed again and took several deep breaths, trying to get control of herself. "Hello." This time her voice did not crack.  
  
Richard seemed unimpressed by her attempt at sounding normal, and more concerned with her voice of a few seconds earlier, as well as her presence. "Julia! Are you all right? I called your home and there was a Preventer there! He said there was a situation but he wouldn't tell me anything..." he finally reached her and touched her shoulder. He froze when his hand encountered the damp, soggy mess that was her shirt. "God, Julia! You're freezing! What happened..."  
  
"I'm all right," she told him, trying to keep her teeth from chattering. That wasn't going to help her convince him that she was 'all right'. Even if she wasn't sure if she was 'all right', or if she'd ever be 'all right' again. "I... I was kidnapped, but they rescued me. I was just outside when it started raining..." she trailed off, not quite sure how to explain her presence here and acutely aware of the evening receptionist watching the discussion.  
  
"Julia, I'm going to call a taxi, I'll take you home," Richard said, starting to turn towards the receptionist, obviously assuming that she didn't want to walk home in the rain and had forgotten to bring money, or something like that.  
  
"No!" she exclaimed, seizing Richard's arm and turning him back to face her. "I... I came... I wanted to know if I could spend the night here. Sleep on the floor or something. Please."  
  
Richard's expression became more suspicious. "Julia, what's going on?"  
  
"I... I can't go back there. I just can't. Please, can I stay here for the night? I promise I'll be gone in the morning."  
  
Richard sighed, not looking at all happy. "Julia, are you in some kind of trouble?"  
  
Julia shook her head, forgetting for a second that he couldn't see the motion. "I... I'm not in trouble," she said hesitantly, not wanting to lie to Richard but not wanting to explain the situation, either. "I just can't go home right now."  
  
Richard stood there silently for a minute, then sighed again and nodded. "All right, but only because I don't think you'd go home, even if I sent you there."  
  
"Thank you!"  
  
"First thing we have to do is get you warmed up, you're going to get sick."  
Julia didn't quite know how to respond to that, so she just remained silent, picking up her bag. He led her through the halls, finally coming to one specific room, and then pushed it open. It was almost completely dark inside, and it took a couple of seconds for her eyes to adjust enough so that she could move at all without bumping into things. She stepped inside, and he closed the door behind them, making it even darker. Richard hurried off somewhere, and she could hear him opening and closing a door. He quickly returned and handed her a big blanket. "Here, wrap this around you."  
  
"Um... Richard?"  
  
"Yes?"  
  
"Do you have lights in here?"  
  
"Oh. Sorry." He moved over to the wall and after a little bit of fumbling, found the light switch. A dim overhead light and two wall-lamps immediately turned on. "I don't usually bother," he explained somewhat sheepishly.   
  
"It's ok. Thanks again," she said, pulling the blanket a little tighter around her shoulders.   
  
"It's no problem," he assured her. "I'm going to call your parents now, let them know..."  
  
"No! I..." Julia swallowed, still surprised at the anger that came up every time she thought about her parents. "Don't call them. Please."  
  
Richard just stood there, and she had the feeling that if he'd been able to see, he would have been staring at her. "Julia, what happened?"  
  
"I... I don't want to talk to them. I don't want to have anything to do with them," she said falteringly. That sounded horrible.  
  
"Did you have a fight?"  
  
"Sort of. Please, I... I don't want to talk about it." Here she faltered again. What if he pressed? She wouldn't lie to him, but what could she tell him?   
  
He seemed to come to some sort of decision. "All right, I won't call them, and you can stay as long as you need." He walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder, frowning as he did so. "You're still far too cold. You need to get warmed up. I have a bath in the other room," he said, giving her a little push in the right direction. "Get in the tub and stay there until you stop shivering. Just go now, I'll bring you something to wear tonight. You can't put that stuff back on."  
  
"I have this..." she started, lifting the bag she'd packed, before she realized that it was as soaked as everything else she had.  
  
"Don't worry, I'll take care of it. And I promise I won't peek," he said with a slight smile.   
  
Julia stared at him for a second before realizing that he was making a joke. She forced out a weak joke, and then obediently went into his bathroom. There was a rather large tub there, and she was beginning to forget what it felt like to be warm. With a sigh of relief she started pulling off her sodden clothes. Maybe she could relax, if only for a few minutes.   
  
As long as she didn't have to think about what she was.  
  
Or her parents.  
  
  
----------  
  
  
Duo was pacing back and forth, his braid whipping around behind him every time he turned to retrace his steps. He glanced at the clock for the fourth time in less than two minutes, then finally sagged down in a chair as his energy left him. His eyes sought out Heero's.   
  
"Where is she?" he asked, although he knew that his husband didn't have the answer. He got back to his feet and walked over to the window, peering out through the water running down the glass. It was pouring out there, cats and dogs, as native Earthlings liked to say. When he'd first come to Earth, Duo had been fascinated by the rain. There was none on the colonies, at least, not where he lived. When he'd come to Earth, he used to stand out on the porch and just watch it for hours. The idea of that much water just falling from the sky was almost mind-boggling. When it was warm enough, he still liked to go outside and stand in the rain, just to feel the water running down his face.   
  
Now, however, all he could think of was that his little girl was out there in this rain, alone.   
  
When she'd stormed out several hours earlier, Heero had expressed the opinion that she'd come back before nightfall. Duo hadn't been so sure, and now he was miserable about being proven right. Julia had a lot more in common with him than he liked to admit - she took a very long time to get angry, but once she did...   
  
He knew that she felt they'd betrayed her, and maybe they had, but they'd just been trying to protect her. And as a result, she was now out there, alone and completely unprotected.   
  
"Found anything?" he asked Heero, who was at his laptop, of course, searching through hotel records to see if she'd gotten a room somewhere. It was the best they could do under the circumstances - Duo knew that if they went out to look for her, they probably wouldn't find her, and even if they did, she probably wouldn't come home with them, anyway. They'd already called all of their friends to keep an eye out for her, and a few of her friends from school and aikido, but no one had seen her.   
  
Heero grunted negatively, and Duo closed his eyes, fighting off a panic. "She's out there by herself, Heero. On the streets. I've been there..." he trailed off with a shudder. He knew intellectually that the town they lived in was a far cry from the slums of L2, and that Julia was far from being the helpless kid he'd been, but that didn't make him feel any better. Heero knew this and stood up to wrap an arm around his shoulders. Duo shrugged him off, not in the mood to be comforted.   
  
The computer beeped, indicating that they had an e-mail message. Heero clicked on it, quickly scanning the message, and some of the tension drained out of his shoulders.   
  
"She's all right."   
  
"What?"   
  
"She's with Richard."   
  
"The blind guy?" Duo had known that Julia had gotten much closer to Richard while she was doing her research project, and from what he'd been told, Richard seemed like a nice enough guy, but Duo had been avoiding meeting him since Julia first mentioned him. He'd done a lot of things he didn't like during the war, but to be confronted with some of the results so plainly was unpleasant, to say the least. "How's she doing? Let's call him..." he trailed off when Heero shook his head.   
  
"Look," he said, turning the laptop to face Duo.   
  
Duo looked. On the screen were just a few short sentences. [[Julia is safe, she's spending the night with me. Please don't try to contact me, she doesn't know I'm writing, and doesn't want you to know where she is, but I didn't want you to worry about her. -Richard Louis]]   
  
Duo swallowed. If Julia was angry enough that she wouldn't even send a message on her own to let them know she was all right...   
  
"At least she's got someplace to stay," he said softly, staring out the window again.  
  
  
  
  
  
Well, there's one more section out. Sorry about the delay for this one, but real life's been just a tad busy, and this section didn't particularly want to be written. Not fun stuff happening here. Julia is not happy right now. I don't think there are words to describe how angry she is, and this is not something that's going to just disappear. Next section should be busy. You think that she was driven when she was investigating the Gundam pilots? She's about to blow that out of the water. She'll probably piss off a bunch of people too, but she's a little too far gone to care.  
  
We have rain like that in Maine. It pours, and if you do have something to cover you, it bounces up off the ground and soaks you anyway. It's cold and it's miserable and generally no one goes anywhere if they can avoid it. It just seemed to fit.  
  
Thank you Von, for giving me the information on how Sally and Wufei met, and thanks to Teep for reminding me a while back that Zechs does exist, and asking where the hell he was. I tend to forget about him, because I have a hard time writing him, so he disappears a lot in my stories. Anyway, there's his cameo, although I may bring him back for more action later.  
  
Hope everyone's still enjoying this, I know I'm having a ball writing it!  
  
Marika 3/15/02 


	14. Part 12

Julia took a deep breath. :I can do this.: "I need to speak with Dr. Chang," she told the receptionist, her voice calm and reasonably pleasant.   
  
"May I say who's asking for her?" asked the receptionist.  
  
"Tell her Julia's here."  
  
"Julia..." the receptionist drew out the name, obviously waiting for a last name.  
  
"Just tell her Julia," she said, swallowing hard. "She'll know who I am."  
  
The blind anger and shock that had been with her for most of yesterday had faded over the night. She hadn't slept, but she had done a lot of thinking. And a lot of planning.   
  
This morning she'd gotten up and changed into some of her clothes, which were dry. Her shoes were still damp, but it was only a minor discomfort, and measured against other things, fairly inconsequential.   
  
:Lets see... compared to everyone I love lying to me for my entire life about what I am, yes, damp feet are reasonably inconsequential.:   
  
The receptionist didn't look convinced at this claim, but something in Julia's expression must have told her that it wasn't worth arguing about. "Just a moment," she said politely, picking up the phone. "Dr. Chang?"   
  
Julia clearly heard Sally's voice on the other end of the line, in addition to a faint echo from one of the back rooms. "Yes?" Sally sounded tired.  
  
"There is a Miss..." the receptionist hesitated for a second, then continued, "There's a Julia here to see you."   
  
There was no response from the other end of the line, but Julia heard something fall and hit the ground, and then heard a door open and feet running down the hall. She turned her head towards the hall just as Sally burst through the door. The older woman's eyes immediately went to Julia, and she took a step towards her, holding out a hand as if to embrace Julia. Julia's eyes narrowed slightly and she took a half-step back, just out of reach.   
  
Sally froze, her hand outstretched, then let it fall to her side. "Do you have any idea how worried your parents are?" she asked quietly. "They were frantic."  
  
"I know," Julia said, swallowing hard. She glanced once at the receptionist. She didn't want to talk in front of her. "Can I talk to you?"  
  
"Of course, this way," Sally gestured towards the hall, and Julia followed her into a small office.   
  
Julia waited until Sally had closed the door, then immediately said, "You knew."  
  
Sally looked upset, but not surprised. "Yes, I did. Your parents needed someone to confide in, and someone who was trained as a doctor. I was their friend, and a Preventer, so they told me. They didn't go around telling everyone," she said, obviously knowing one of Julia's questions ahead of time.  
  
"Zechs knew!" Julia snapped in response.  
  
Sally blinked, then recovered. "He knew because he led the mission to find out what the scientists were doing. He was also the one who signed off on sealing the files so that you would have a chance at a normal life." She flinched as soon as the words left her mouth, probably realizing that they weren't the best words to chose.  
  
"A normal life?!" Julia asked, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'm an inhuman freak created for war. I plowed through a steel door, I never get sick, I'm a genius, and, oh yes, I get blinding headaches and white flashes because my mind can't handle all the enhancements they built into me! Yeah, I had a real good shot at having a normal life," she finished bitterly.   
  
"You've been having difficulties?" Sally asked quietly.   
  
Julia swallowed the sarcastic comment that first came to mind and looked away, trying to get control of herself. She'd come here for answers, not to yell at Sally. "Yes," she said in a short, flat, voice. "Do you know why?"  
  
"Not for sure, but I can make a guess," Sally said, sitting at her desk. "Your enhanced abilities first began to kick in when you should have hit a major growth spurt. That was when you first started getting the headaches. You did learn to deal with them, so your abilities were no longer a problem. They stopped getting stronger - as quickly - for a time while your body caught up, then got stronger again. Do you remember the headaches you had a few years ago?"  
  
Julia did, all too well. "They weren't as bad as when I was little, and they only lasted for a few days," she said suspiciously.   
  
"It was because you already knew how to deal with the problem, and adjusted automatically. Also, the changes in your abilities were not as great. But in the last few months, the enhancements have begun increasing at an accelerated rate again, and what you've used before just isn't enough to handle the increased stress all the time."  
  
"So," Julia swallowed. "It's going to get worse?"  
  
"Quite possibly."  
  
"How much worse?" She saw the helpless look on Sally's face and altered her question. "For how much longer?"  
  
"It's impossible to know for certain... but, based on the previous occasions... no more than six months, on the outside. Possibly as little as three."   
  
"Three more months?" Julia repeated slowly. "It's going to keep getting worse for another three months?"  
  
"At least."   
  
Julia swallowed. Her senses had only begun getting sensitive again a few months ago, and already the changes were great enough that they were causing her problems. Granted, that might have been because she was expending so much energy, both physical and emotional, on her studies, but in another few months... If it was as bad as she thought it would be, she'd have trouble functioning at school, to say nothing of actually using her abilities. "Is there... how do I deal with them? I haven't had a problem in years, what was I doing then that I'm not doing now?"  
  
"I don't know for certain," Sally replied. "There's never been... the situation has never come up before. My guess would be that your abilities have simply progressed beyond the point where your subconscious mind could easily deal with the flow of information."  
  
"So there's nothing I can do?" Julia asked, trying not to let Sally know how frightened she was. If there was nothing she could do to get control of it, she would go crazy, she knew it. She remembered all too clearly the white chaos that had overtaken her mind when they shot her with the darts. Now she knew it was because the darts had clouded her mind, caused her control to slip for an instant, and that was the result. Was that what was going to happen to her eventually? That one day she'd slip into that awful white haze and never come out of it?  
  
"I didn't say that!" Sally said quickly. "Now that you know what the problem, it's entirely possible that you will be able to train your mind to deal with the increased flow of information."  
  
"What? Why does me knowing make a difference?"  
  
"Before all we could teach you was little concentration exercises, ways of learning to cut down on what you were thinking about. That's all standard meditation. Your mind took those lessons and automatically started using them as a sort of self-defense against your own abilities. But the process was entirely sub-conscious, and therefore more tedious. Theoretically, now that you know what the problem is, you should be able to deal with the problem directly, more efficiently, especially the way that your mind works. It could make a big difference."  
  
Julia thought back to the argument she'd had with her parents, how she'd started to lose control of her sight and just brought it back under control. And she hadn't had a problem since then, despite the fact that she'd been running on an emotional high for a while now. She nodded slowly.  
  
"You think that might work?" Sally asked hopefully.  
  
"I... have already done that. It's easier to keep things from getting out of control than it was a few days ago," Julia admitted. "But... if things keep getting worse..."  
  
"There is another option," Sally said slowly, reluctantly. "Duo has been very set against it, but the option remains. There are drugs I can give you to help dull your senses. I don't know if they will work on you, with your immunities and metabolism, and there may be side effects... but it is an option."  
  
"No drugs!" Julia said sharply, squeezing her eyes shut.  
  
"Julia..."  
  
"NO DRUGS!" Julia shouted. "Not again!" Without warning her senses burst out of control again. Her own racing heartbeat pounded in her ears, deafening her, and she could feel the wrinkles in her own skin where her hands were clenched into fists. At least her eyes were already closed.  
  
Julia struggled for control. :I can do this,: she told herself determinedly. :It's just information. I don't have to feel all this. Just tone it down.:   
  
It took her several minutes of intense concentration, but she managed to do just that. The problem got no worse, and her world did not dissolve into a white haze. Finally things returned to normal (for her), and she dared to open her eyes. Sally was still sitting at her desk, staring silently at her.   
  
"Are you all right?" she asked quietly.  
  
"I have it under control," Julia said stiffly.  
  
"Why did you have that kind of reaction?"   
  
"What?"  
  
"You're trembling," Sally said, her voice full of worry. She was staring at Julia's hands. Julia looked down and realized that her hands were clenched in fists, and she was still trembling.   
  
Her entire body was shaking with a barely controlled terror. She'd had to shut it out before, to get control of her senses, but now that she thought about it, she could feel it again, terror that still had her heart racing and her breath coming in short pants. She hadn't panicked like this when she'd been captured, why was she doing it now?  
  
"I... I don't know," she said, trying to keep herself calm, or else she'd bring on another loss of control. She could feel tears pricking her eyes and fought to keep them there. "I don't know! They... they drugged me when they kidnapped me..." that was the wrong thing to say, since it brought back memories of the white haze, but even as she said it, she knew that wasn't the source of her terror. A flash of a memory fragment came to mind, a needle filled with some substance, a hauntingly familiar face, and then fire spreading throughout her entire body. Then it was gone, no matter how she grasped for it. "I... I can't remember," she said in a gasp, hugging her arms and rocking back and forth slightly. "But... no drugs," she finally finished, remembering the important part of the conversation. "No drugs," she repeated, looking pleadingly at Sally for a promise that she wouldn't do that to her.  
  
"No drugs," Sally repeated, although she still looked worried. "You can't remember?"  
  
Julia searched again for that elusive memory fragment, this time taking notice of her body's response, and wasn't particularly surprised to find herself tensing up again at the thought of any drugs. But she couldn't quite find it. "No," she replied quietly. This had never happened to her before - she could always find a memory, no matter how far back. This was the first time she'd ever had any difficulty remembering something, and she wasn't enjoying the experience.   
  
After a few more seconds of fruitless searching, she shook her head slightly, trying to dispel some of the tension. "I can't remember it," she repeated. "Can we not talk about this?" she asked sharply.   
  
Sally looked even more worried, but after a few seconds she nodded. Julia used that time to compose her thoughts slightly.  
  
"Yesterday my... yesterday they said that they didn't know how strong I was because there was no way to test me without making me suspicious. Well," she gave a slightly bitter laugh. "You can test me now."  
  
Sally closed her eyes briefly. "Julia... are you sure..."  
  
"I want to know what I am, what I can do. I... you know what I did to the door," Julia said, automatically avoiding mentioning her kidnapping more specifically. "When I got home, I punched through a wall. I... I could really hurt somebody, without meaning to," she finished quietly, thinking of the kidnapper whose leg she'd broken when he tried to beat her. She wasn't sorry about that, but what if it had been... what if it had been someone she cared about? She sparred with people all the time... "I need to know. You can help me figure it out, right?"  
  
"I can... but I don't have the equipment here that I'd need."  
  
"What?"  
  
"The equipment... it's not sensitive enough. Your eyesight and hearing have progressed beyond my ability to test with standard equipment."   
  
Julia swallowed, then nodded her head sharply. "Fine. Where can we go?"  
  
Sally paused for a second, then said, "Preventer Headquarters has everything I'd need. We'd have to get them involved, anyway."   
  
"Because I'm classified material," Julia said bitterly.  
  
Looking very much as if she would like to be able to disagree, Sally responded, "It was to protect you."  
  
Julia snorted. "Lets go."  
  
To her surprise, Sally didn't try to argue. "All right, but I have to call ahead, let them know we're coming." She hesitated for a second, then added, "If you want, I can have them have a doctor waiting to perform the tests, if you'd be more comfortable that way."  
  
Julia blinked as she realized what Sally was offering, and thought it over. She might be angry with Sally for keeping secrets from her, but it hadn't been her idea, and the thought of some strange doctor poking at her was frightening. Especially if he started treating her like some sort of science project, the way the people who'd wanted to take her away when she was younger had, before her fathers put a stop to the testing. She shuddered.   
  
"No. I want you," she said quickly.   
  
  
-----------  
  
  
The ride to Preventer headquarters wasn't long, but it felt that way, since they rode in silence. They were stopped at the gate by a guard who asked for their names, then waved through to another guard and another gate, who asked them the same thing and then pointed to a parking lot they could use. Once they actually got inside the main building (it turned out that the headquarters was more of a compound than she'd expected, with a number of smaller buildings surrounding the main one), they went through another security checkpoint, where they were both given badges to wear for the duration of their stay.   
  
"I have to go check in," Sally said as they started down one of the halls, passing a lot of people in those ugly Preventer uniforms and getting a lot of stares, presumably because they weren't wearing them.   
  
"Didn't we do that already?" Julia asked, glaring at some man who wouldn't stop staring at her for some reason. His eyes widened, and he turned as white as a sheet before hastily turning away.  
  
Sally's eyes were narrowed thoughtfully, and she stared at the man as she answered. "We checked in with security. I need to go report to my commanding officer, if I'm on base."   
  
"Who's your commanding officer?"   
  
"Lady Une."   
  
Julia stopped short. "What?"  
  
Sally turned to look at her. "I was a special operative, the same as your fathers, and your uncles. We reported only to Lady Une."  
  
"Oh," Julia repeated, feeling very, very stupid for not realizing that sooner, for being surprised by that information. Then she was distracted by another Preventer staring at her. She glared at him, too, and he had a remarkably similar reaction to the first.   
  
A few days ago she might have ignored this, assumed it was some strange coincidence that the two men had such a similar reaction, or even dismissed the observation as being in her own mind, but that was before she'd been kidnapped, shot a man, and had her entire universe turned upside down. She turned to Sally, keeping a wary eye on the Preventers around her.  
  
"Why are they doing that?"  
  
"Doing what?" Sally asked.  
  
"That," Julia said, nodded slightly toward a third Preventer who was looking at her the same way as the first two. Like them, he was an older man, at least in his forties, and he was looking at her with the same puzzled expression as the other two. She stared back at him, waiting for him to realize it was rude to stare, but his perplexed frown only deepened slightly, as if he was trying to remember something. Julia glared at him, and he actually winced before hastily turning away.  
  
"That," she repeated, seeing that Sally had observed the entire encounter. "Why are they doing that?"  
  
Sally glanced at the man for a long moment, then at Julia, then back at the man, and finally she sighed. "You're frightening them."  
  
"What?!" Julia somehow managed to keep that from coming out as a shriek, but just barely.  
  
Sally closed her eyes and sighed again. "You may not see it, but you do look like your parents," she pointed out, and Julia remembered the dozens of times she'd looked in the mirror, doing what she thought was wishful thinking as she observed the similarities between her appearance and that of her fathers'.   
  
After pausing for a long moment, Sally continued, "Especially when you're glaring at people like that."  
  
"Like what?" Julia said, giving Sally an example of said glare.  
  
"As if you were already planning where you'd bury their bodies to cover the murder," Sally responded quietly.   
  
Julia's irritation dissolved as Sally's words sunk in. "I... they... they think I look like my parents did back *then*?" she demanded in a harsh whisper. She thought back to the expressions on their faces when Stevens had held a gun to her head. It had been one of the most frightening things she'd ever seen. The Preventers saw some of that in *her*?!  
  
"I would never..." she started, and then trailed off. 'I would never kill someone,' she'd been about to say, but she couldn't even say that was the truth anymore. Memories she'd been trying to repress suddenly rose to the fore, causing an almost physical pain. Julia closed her eyes tight, trying to keep tears from leaking out. She shook her head once, then hoped that Sally hadn't seen the motion. She wiped each of her eyes once, carefully, to get rid of the betraying moisture.  
  
"I would never hurt them," she finally said.  
  
"They thought that mere children could never hurt them," Sally continued, her voice somewhat distant, as if she were lost in thought. "And some of the men here saw their comrades pay for that mistake with their lives. You can't blame them for being wary."  
  
No, Julia couldn't blame them for being wary, even for being afraid of her. They had good reason - she'd been created by the same people who created the Gundams... The same people who, in a way, had created the pilots. They'd made her for war...  
  
:And if I wanted to, I could kill most of them before they could do anything to stop me...: the thought passed through her mind, accompanied by a fragment of a memory, a disturbing empty whiteness, a whiff of some cleaning agent, and then... nothing.  
  
:What the... What was I just thinking!: she thought, horrified. Why would she ever think something like that? What was that memory, and where had that come from? Thinking like that, it was...  
  
It was the way they would have thought, back during the war. A second passed before she realized the truth of that statement. She'd reconstructed enough of their personalities on her own to know that, even without having seen the records. That was the way that they operated. Even when among friends, even when completely safe, they were unable to relax, not for a second. Even under peaceful conditions, they would have been analyzing those around them for possible weakness, in case they needed to make a quick exit... or in case their 'allies' turned on them and had to be eliminated.  
  
But her fathers... all of the pilots had been taught to act that way, either by their upbringing or their training or both. There was nothing in her history that would account for her behaving like a terrorist on the run, analyzing those around her for weakness, looking for ways to strike at them. There was no reason for her to think that she could kill those around her...  
  
:I could.: The thought passed through her mind as she looked around at the  
Preventers. The room they were passing through held only fifteen desks, and several of those were unoccupied. There were a few people walking around, but most of the Preventers were sitting at desks. As one of them slid his chair back and stood up to get a drink, she saw that he did wear a firearm, but that the safety was on and there was a strap over the top to keep the gun from being easily drawn. :Mistake, that, if they ever actually needed the guns, that would cost them a few seconds,: she thought, the observation sounding rather distant, even in her own head. Yes, most of the people walking around were aides of some sort, not even armed, and all of the rest were stuck behind their desks. It would take several seconds for them to get out into a position where they could fire their weapons, and a little more time to get them free of the holsters... Yes, she probably could take out half the people here before they got off a shot, if she chose the moment right, and once she had a gun...  
  
:WHAT?!: Where had that come from? Julia deliberately called to mind  
Stevens' body as he fell to the ground, blood blossoming from his chest. The memory made her feel nauseous, and she welcomed the sensation as evidence that she was still feeling, that she was still *human*.  
  
"Julia?" Sally's concerned voice broke into her thoughts.  
  
Julia blinked once and turned to smile hesitantly at Sally, grateful for the distraction (any distraction), all the while frantically searching her memory for what Sally had just said to her. After a couple of seconds she found it. "We're meeting with Lady Une?" she asked, eyes widening. She wasn't entirely certain she liked this idea. Lady Une had had some serious issues during the war, and had tried to kill both of her parents on numerous occasions. She'd come pretty close at least once, when she threatened the colonies.  
  
Julia knew that people could change. Zechs had defended her right after she'd been rescued, and it was obvious that he and her parents had... well, they certainly weren't friendly, but they had a decent amout of respect for each other. Still, the idea of coming face-to-face with one of the leaders of OZ didn't sound like such a great idea to her. To say nothing of the fact that Une was still one of the most powerful people in the world, in control of the largest military group on or off-planet.  
  
"She's a good woman, and feels very guilty about what happened to you," Sally told her, apparently interpreting her comment correctly.  
  
"Oh," Julia said, wondering what incident in particular Sally was talking about: when she'd gotten kidnapped... or when she'd gotten created?  
  
Julia remained silent as they approached the center of the building, where there were some rather large and well-appointed offices with little groups of cubicles and desks clustered around each one. They were in almost the exact center of the building, Julia realized after a couple of seconds. She'd been building a mental map of the building and matching it against the floor map she'd seen on entering. That map had only illustrated a few of the outer corridors, the ones that visitors would normally use, but it provided an excellent reference for her to use when mapping the rest of the building. It wasn't the most interesting thing she'd ever done, but it was better than wondering if Lady Une was going to be interested in renewing old grudges. And it was definitely better than walking through the building analyzing the occupants for weakness. Where had that come from? She didn't know, and that worried her. She'd shrugged off the inexplicable in her life before, and look where it had gotten her.   
  
Finally they entered a large room with over a dozen desks in it, and at the end was a door with two armed Preventers standing guard. They were stopped by the Preventer sitting behind the first desk, asked for identification, and then asked to wait there while the woman called her superiors and found out why two civilians were wandering around in the most restricted section of the base.   
  
Several minutes later, Chang Wufei arrived.   
  
Julia wasn't sure how to react to him. She'd gotten used to the idea that he was a Gundam pilot, but now she knew that he was also somehow related to her. Or at least, she had as much of his genetic material as Daddy and Tousan's. What did that make him to her? Parent? Donor?   
  
"Preventer Chang!" the woman who'd delayed them sprang from her seat to salute him.   
  
:Maybe they could get their weapons clear in a few seconds...: Julia mused, then stiffened as she realized where her thoughts were heading. Again. :What the hell is wrong with me?:  
  
"I will take responsibility for them," Wufei was saying to the Preventer as she jerked her thoughts back to the present. He turned to face Sally and Julia, his bearing stiff and formal. "It will be a few minutes until the Lady can speak with you."   
  
Sally nodded just as formally, showing no sign that the agent they were talking to was anything more than that. Julia glanced between the two of them, trying to figure out what was going on. Both of them were acting as if they'd never seen each other before, not like they were a married couple who had already celebrated their ten-year anniversary.  
  
Then she saw Wufei glance nervously at her, and realized that he was as uncomfortable with her knowing the truth as she was. He'd probably retreated into formality until he could figure out how to deal with her. Julia frowned slightly, not liking being turned into something that had to be dealt with, but not having any better suggestions about how they should talk.   
  
The three of them stood in uncomfortable silence for a minute, then Julia finally asked, "How are Yuko and the rest?"   
  
The mask that was Wufei's face cracked slightly. "They are well, and progressing in their studies. And how are you?" he asked, probably automatically, judging by the slight wince after the words left his mouth.   
  
"I... I've had better days," Julia responded quietly.   
  
Wufei's eyes reflected sympathy for a moment before he nodded sharply and resumed staring into space. Luckily for all of them, the Preventer who'd originally stopped them told them that Lady Une was free. They walked past the rest of the desks, and one of the guards opened the door for them, gesturing them to step inside the office.  
  
Julia stepped through first, her eyes automatically adjusting to the slightly dimmer light, and stopped short. Lady Une was standing behind a large wooden desk that looked very expensive, and standing at the side of that desk, leafing through some papers, was Zechs Marquise. :Great. Just great.: Just about everyone who'd ever tried to kill her parents was here in this room. Zechs had been kind to her before, but that was when she'd found out what she really was, so she was having some difficulty not associating his face with more pain.   
  
Lady Une smiled kindly and moved around the desk, holding out her hand. After a couple of seconds Julia recovered enough to finish walking into the room, automatically extending her own hand. Shaking the Lady's hand, she noticed Zechs nodding a greeting to Wufei and Sally, before he settled down into staring at her.   
  
"It's a pleasure to finally meet you," Lady Une said, gesturing for them to seat themselves in the comfortable-looking chairs in front of her desk.   
  
"Finally?" Julia asked, not sitting. She wasn't entirely sure what she was doing here, and she didn't really want to get comfortable. Sally had told her that they needed to come to the Preventers to check out how strong she really was, but that didn't explain why she was now face-to-face with the leaders of the Preventers. Or why said woman seemed to already know her.   
  
"Wufei has mentioned you many times," Une said with another smile, glancing at Wufei.   
  
"Oh." Julia somehow doubted that Une's knowledge of her was limited to the 'this is my niece, isn't she cute?' variety, but she couldn't think of any way to say it that wouldn't sound as if she was calling Une a liar. :Oh, what the hell.: "And that's all you know about me?" she asked sharply.   
  
The smile faltered slightly. "No, I also recieved a full report on you when the first kidnapping attempt was made."   
  
Her gaze never wavered, but Julia noticed her heartbeat speed up slightly, and her breathing was slightly erratic. "And?" she asked, lowering her voice.   
  
Une's eyes widened slightly, the only indication of her surprise, but Julia heard her heartbeat speed up another notch. "And what was in the reports for the operation that resulted in your rescue," she said, after a long pause.   
  
:Rescue?: Julia had never thought about it that way, but that was probably accurate. The few memories she'd recovered from that time had given her nightmares for weeks, and just thinking about them made her go cold now. If they hadn't found her, she probably would have been trained as an assassin, taught to have no emotions, the way they tried to with Tousan. Rescue was definitely correct.   
  
"Thank you."   
  
If anything, Lady Une seemed even more surprised by her thanks. "You're welcome. Why did you come here?"   
  
"Sally said that she couldn't test me at her clinic, that the equipment she needed was here," Julia replied wearily.   
  
"Test you?"   
  
"Find out exactly how strong and fast and whatever the hell else I am," Julia clarified. "She said the equipment she had there wasn't good enough. Probably better for security if she does it here, too," she said, casting a glance at Sally. Her fathers had said that the files on her and what the doctors had done were sealed. Sealed probably meant highest security, and while it had probably been done partially out of concern for her, she didn't expect that the Preventers would like having the public have any knowledge about what they'd allowed to happen.   
  
:Me. They allowed me to be made.:  
  
Julia pushed the thought away. Getting upset about this again wasn't going to get her anywhere. "Will you allow it or not?" she asked, realizing why she was here. If, for some reason, the Lady wouldn't allow it, she might as well go home. There she could start some serious hacking and see how good the Preventer's computer system really was, and how sealed her files really were.   
  
"Of course."   
  
Julia sagged slightly in relief. Despite everything, she wasn't quite ready to try to take on all of the Preventers and their security. Not quite.   
  
She turned to Sally. "When can we begin?"   
  
"It will take some time to get the equipment ready, depending on it's availability," Sally hedged, looking first at Une, then Wufei.   
  
"Fine. May I look at the files in the meantime?" she asked promptly.   
  
"What?"   
  
"The files the doctors had about me, or the reports on my rescue, if they had a chance to destroy the files." Julia raised an eyebrow. "You don't expect me to believe that you would have thrown out that information?"  
  
There was a short, awkward silence which Sally finally broke. "I doubt you'd be able to make anything of them. Most of them are extremely technical."  
  
"Let me look at them," Julia insisted. She didn't think they knew exactly how smart she was and how much she had studied, so maybe she had a better chance then they knew of understanding it. And even if she couldn't understand it, she could always memorize it and figure out what it meant later.  
  
"They're classified..." Lady Une started, then trailed off, averting her eyes.  
  
"They're me," Julia said, taking a step forward. Une backed up a step. "The files are on me. I want to know what I am." She spoke slowly, in a low voice, but her entire body trembled with pent-up emotion. "I deserve to see them, more than just about anyone."   
  
Suddenly Lady Une's heartbeat calmed, and her breathing no longer showed any signs of labor. She gazed calmly at Julia for a long moment, then nodded. "You're right. My apologies. I will call for someone to take you there immediately."   
  
"What? Why can't Wufei take me?" Julia really didn't like the idea of looking through the files with some unknown Preventer looking over her shoulder.  
  
"Preventer Chang has other duties that I've already called him away from," Lady Une replied, then added, "And he is unfamiliar with that region of our storage area." She reached for the comm. on her desk.  
  
"I'll take her," Zechs suddenly offered from his place by the desk. He'd set down the papers he'd been studying and abandoned any pretense at looking at them, now completely focused on their discussion.  
  
Four heads snapped around to look at him.   
  
  
----  
  
  
Duo was working on deconstructing an engine that had had one too many breakdowns for it's previous owner. They'd sold it to one of his people at a good price, and within a couple of hours he'd found that the problem only affected a few parts. The rest were in great condition and could be either sold or incorporated into other engines, as soon as he took this one apart.   
  
It was good to be working on things, using his hands. For as long as he could remember, he'd always enjoyed working with machinery. It had gotten him in trouble more times then he wanted to think about, but he would never be able to give it up. There was a serenity associated with working with his hands on a completely mundane, solvable problem. He could sit there and work, and not have to think about things. :Though figuring out how to get that damn thermal blade to work underwater required a bit of thought,: he admitted to himself, smiling at the memory of that triumph.   
  
The smile disappeared almost as soon as it appeared, as he remembered Deathscythe, what his involvement with the scientists had caused, and the original reason he'd had for coming out here to work and not think.   
  
Lady Une, of all people, had called a few hours ago to say that Julia was at Preventer headquarters. Apparently she'd shown up at Sally's office and demanded to know everything that Sally knew about her, and when Sally couldn't give her all the answers she wanted, she went to the Preventers to get it. According to Lady Une, she'd managed to intimidate half of the staff on the walk in, and had all but ordered Une to show Julia the files on herself.  
  
Zechs was taking her to see the files on the mission where they'd found her while Sally prepared some equipment to test Julia's abilities.   
  
He was going to have a long talk with Lady Une about both of those things, first chance he got. He didn't have anything against Zechs, but he wasn't exactly at the top of the list of people he wanted his daughter running around with, especially when she was discovering painful things about her past. And this whole business of 'testing' her, like she was some lab animal...  
  
:Damn it.: He couldn't even sustain a legitimate sense of irritation about this; he knew very well that it was probably Julia's idea that she be tested. She'd want to know everything about herself, and she'd keep going until she had her answers. Her determination was one of the many things she'd inherited - or learned - from her parents. He couldn't possibly be angry with her for being tenacious - he'd pursued revenge on Oz for years, he wouldn't be where he was now if not for it. None of them would have gotten anywhere without that determination.   
  
Despite all of his best intentions otherwise, he couldn't stop thinking about this, about her. About the look on her face as the body of that son of a bitch flew backwards, the utter misery in her eyes before she collapsed in his arms. It was one of his worst nightmares come to life, to see that awful soul-killing guilt in her eyes. And now, because they hadn't told her the truth, she wouldn't even let them be close enough to comfort her.   
  
:Shoulda known better than to try to hide it from her that long,: he thought ruefully. He might never lie, but he knew better than most how damning a partial truth could be. And now, thanks to him, so did Julia.  
  
Duo went back to dismantling the engine with renewed energy.  
  
  
  
  
Well, here's the next section. Sorry about the incredibly long wait. Had finals, and then writer's block, but I think I know where I'm going with it now. Maybe. Anyway, I'm not sure how much I liked this section. Julia was somewhat confused, so I think the writing style was inconsistent, but that may just be in my head. There is some wierd stuff coming up in her head now that she knows the truth, which accounts for some of it. In any case, thanks to all who have stuck with this story for so long!  
Marika :) 


	15. Part 13a

"Is it far?" Julia asked, staring straight ahead at the white interior of the elevator. It turned out that the storage area was actually underground and in a different part of the base entirely. They were going to take an elevator to one of many underground tunnels and get a ride over to the other building. It all seemed rather melodramatic to her, but it was their base. "Only a few minutes," he assured her, also staring into the space in front of him. Another few seconds passed, and then she asked, "Why did you offer to take me?" "I thought you might be more comfortable with someone who you knew, if only in passing," he replied evenly. "Also, I have no duties here." "Oh." She wondered why no one had ever taught him something called tact to go along with all those manners of his. This habit of his of telling the whole truth could be just a little irritating. The elevator pinged and the doors opened in front of them. They were now in a wide hallway, almost large enough to drive a car down, lit with white fluorescent tubes. There was a man sitting at a desk, and a bunch of golf carts lined up against the wall. The man barely even glanced at them as they emerged from the elevator. He marked something off on a paper in front of him and asked in a bored voice, "Preventer Wind?" "Yes." "Here you go. Make sure you turn it in and sign off when you get to wherever you're going." The man actually tossed a key at Zechs. His aim was terrible - Julia saw that the key was going to hit Zechs somewhere around his shins. Without thinking about it, she dropped her hand and bent to snatch the key out of the air. She glanced up at Zechs as she stood up again... and froze. Looking at him from this angle, staring up at his face, he looked very familiar. A fragment of a memory flashed in front of her eyes - laying on her back, staring up at the same face she looked at now, only slightly younger... The memory started to slip away, and Julia grabbed for it - And found herself lying on her back, a large transparent bubble overhead. She waved a hand in front of her face, and was amazed by how small it was. She was very young in this memory, then. Julia-the-baby turned her head to the side and saw more of the transparent plastic. She had difficulty getting her eyes to focus at all, and even more difficulty with the distortion the plastic made, but beyond the wall she could see another cradle with a plastic bubble over it and a baby lying inside. The baby was incredibly pale and had very light blonde hair. Katie. Julia pressed her hand against the plastic, and could dimly see Katie mirroring the gesture a few feet away. She felt something, not quite a sound or a touch or an image, but a little of all three, and without knowing how, she knew that Katie was trying to reassure her. But reassure her why? No sooner had the question appeared in her mind than she had an answer. Something was coming, something big, but it was good. They were leaving. Julia-the-baby didn't really understand what Katie was trying to tell her, but allowed herself to be reassured. Suddenly there was an explosion of noise, of voices shouting, and several large figures moved past the bubbles. Julia felt a cold stab of fear at the voices - they were the ones that had haunted her dreams the few times prior to this that she'd ventured this far back in her memories. Then both the figures and voices were gone. There was a little more shouting, then everything got very quiet. Then more figures moved into view. These stepped right up to the bubble, talking in low voices. Then one of them lifted the bubble away, and she saw a young man in a Preventer uniform. Now she knew why Katie had tried to reassure her, but it didn't stop the panic from rising. These weren't the owners of the frightening voices, but they were an unknown. Julia-the- baby had never seen people like this before, and wasn't sure she liked it. "Commander!" the man shouted, a hint of panic in his voice. "Come here!" There was another pause, then Zechs - a younger Zechs - came into view. "My God," he murmured, looking from her to Katie and back. A woman with short dark hair stepped up beside him and gasped, covering her mouth with one hand. That small sound seemed to snap Zechs out of his shock. "Get that one," he said softly, nodding towards Katie. "We have to get them out of here before all of the men see them." He leaned over Julia-the-baby and she felt his hands lifting her into the air, until she rested against his chest, her head lying on his shoulder. Zechs turned and she could see the woman cradling Katie in her arms. "You will mention nothing of this, do you understand?" Zechs asked, and Julia realized he was talking to the other man. "Y-Yes, sir!" the man stammered. Julia started as someone shook her shoulder, then blinked and looked up at Zechs' face. She was still partially bent over, the key in her hand, in the tunnel underneath the Preventer base. "Are you all right?" he asked, looking faintly concerned. "You... you were the one who picked me up," she said, standing up the rest of the way, still partially caught up in the memory. "You protected the two of us, you and that woman. You kept people from knowing about us." "You remember that?" he asked, his calm finally breaking for a moment as he stared at her with wide eyes. "I don't forget anything," she told him. "Who was the woman?" "Lucretzia. My wife," he told her as she handed him the key and climbed into the nearest cart. "The one on Mars?" "Yes." He inserted the key into the ignition and started driving. He didn't seem to want to talk about this, so Julia fell silent again, watching the featureless walls of the tunnel pass them by. Another minute of driving and they found another line of golf carts, another man at a desk, and another door. The tunnel extended a few hundred feet beyond this position, then turned sharply. Julia wondered idly where and how far the tunnels did extend. If you tried to press an attack at one point, they could funnel in more troops to that location without anyone ever knowing, she observed. Of course, tunnels were very easy to block - a few charges set in the right places, and...  
  
Julia jerked herself back to full alertness, shaking slightly. I have to figure out where that's coming from. Every time she let her mind wander, she started planning invasion tactics. Zechs glanced at her out of the corner of his eye as he parked the cart, but didn't say anything. They climbed out of the cart and walked over to the man at the desk, and handed him the key. "Preventer Wind and Julia Maxwell-Yuy," Zechs told him.  
  
The young man's eyes widened slightly at this announcement, but it was at Julia, not Zechs, that he stared. Julia stared back at him. This wasn't like the Preventers she'd been scaring before, this man couldn't be more than five years older than her. There was no way he could have faced either (any?) of her parents in battle. So why did her name provoke that kind of reaction. Maybe he'd heard of her parents, knew who they really were. In the Preventers, that could be it. Or it might not be. As they stepped into another elevator she asked, "Why did he look at me like that?" To Zechs' credit, he didn't ask, "Like what?" or make any other attempts to avoid her question. Instead, he let out a small sigh and stared straight ahead again. "You upset a lot of people," he said. Julia blinked. "What? When?" She'd meant to upset her parents and family, everyone who had lied to her, but she couldn't see what that had to do with the Preventer. "When you disappeared and we couldn't find you. It upset people that a mere child..." his lips quirked up in a wry smile, "...could manage to disappear so thoroughly that we couldn't find her." "Why were you looking for me?" Julia asked slowly, her voice heavy with suspicion. She knew her parents wouldn't have sent the Preventers out looking for her. Family, definitely, local police, maybe, but not the Preventers. "It's standard policy to keep tabs on individuals who have been involved in... altercations. When you disappeared, they tried to reestablish contact, just so we would know where you were." "Altercations..." Julia repeated slowly, drawing the word out. "Define altercations." "Fatal altercations," Zechs clarified. Julia felt as if someone had punched her in the stomach. They kept an eye on people who'd killed, probably to make sure that they didn't do it again. And she'd panicked them by disappearing the same day as the 'altercation'. They must have thought that she running from them. And anyone who knew what she really was must have been really panicked, a thing like her on the loose right after she'd killed someone. She closed her eyes, wishing desperately to be normal, just so that she could forget what had happened. How many people had her parents killed during the war? Hundreds? Thousands? Their memories were almost as good as hers, how could they stand to remember every single one of them? "Julia!" Zechs' voice once more broke her out of her thoughts. "Are you all right?" "I... It's just that I've been trying not to think about that," Julia said, blushing bright red with shame and wondering how pathetic, exactly, she sounded. "I understand," he replied. "I spent the better part of my life trying to do that." He was silent for a long moment and then added, almost offhandedly, "It doesn't work, not in the end." The elevator chimed and the doors opened into a waiting room with yet another Preventer sitting behind the desk. If Julia hadn't known they were now several stories beneath the ground, she would have thought that they were in any normal office building. The Preventer watched them approach. "Preventer Wind?" she asked, then continued without waiting for an answer. "HQ has called ahead. I've assigned one of my people to give you any assistance you require in finding documents. Through the door and take a right, second door on the left. Yohannes is waiting inside." Zechs thanked her and then stepped to the door. A light on a panel set in the wall flashed green for a second before Zechs pushed at the door and it opened before him. He stepped through and Julia followed him. They were now in a hallway, one that extended at least a hundred feet in either direction before turning or ending. They went right, and Zechs stopped at the second door on the left, waving his hand past the scanner built into the wall. Another flash of green, and the door opened. At a gesture from Zechs, Julia preceded him through this door and into an enormous room. Julia stopped short just inside the doorway, retaining just enough presence of mind to step out of the way so that she didn't block the doorway. She was in the biggest room she'd ever been in. It was at least three stories tall, and probably the size of a football field from end to end. No wonder they hid this place underground - if it was above ground, not only would it be an amazing eyesore, but also an obvious target for any attacks. Almost half of the room was taken up by a huge computer, probably the center of all of the Preventer's systems. There were a few large tables near the door, each with a computer or two on it, presumably so that people could look at the files without taking them out of the room. The rest of the space was taken up by file cabinets stretching from floor to ceiling from one end of the room to the other. Julia focused her eyes on something in the distance, and saw some sort of lift on wheels, presumably there so that people could reach files on the upper levels. Shit. Julia didn't even realize that she'd spoken out loud until the young Preventer standing just inside the door grinned at her. "This is one of the main data storage facilities for the Preventers," he told her. "We have files in here dating back to the creation of the Preventers, before the Mareimaia incident. The computer also has backup files of just about every Preventer file in existence." Julia blinked. I'm not sure that that's such a good idea, storing all of their stuff here. It'd be hard to get to, but if this place did get hit hard, they'd lose everything. As if he'd read her mind, the Preventer - Yohannes - continued, "And, of course, the data on the computer is uploaded every five minutes to a backup computer at a secure location." He grinned again, and Julia realized somewhat belatedly that he was only a few years older than her, and not at all unattractive, with those dark eyes and round face. Immediately dropping her eyes, she wondered if he was flirting with her. No, that was ridiculous. He was a Preventer agent, for goodness sake! There was a short silence, then Yohannes cleared his throat. "Can I help you, sir?" he asked, addressing Zechs directly. "I need to see the files for mission 10342-56," Zechs replied immediately, his voice stern. "Yes sir! I'll get it for you right away, sir," Yohannes said, saluting. He turned and walked briskly down one of the long corridors. "You know the number of that mission, just like that?" Julia asked. "I know the numbers for all of my missions," he replied, then turned to look at her. "And I especially would have remembered that one. Une called me in from Mars to head it." "Why didn't she ask one of... one of the pilots to do it?" Julia managed to get out, after momentarily stumbling over how to refer to her parents and uncles. "I believe that she didn't want to force them to come face-to-face with the doctors again," he replied. "Also, their presence wasn't really necessary. It was a high-profile mission, but not particularly dangerous or difficult. At least, it wasn't supposed to be." Julia didn't like the sound of that. "Wasn't supposed to be?" "They had booby-trapped a large part of their base," Zechs replied in a frosty tone. "I. we lost a few men before anyone realized what was happening and I gave the order to pull back until we could get some bomb specialists in." At that moment, Julia looked at him, and immediately wished she hadn't. She'd seen that look before, when her parents had come looking for her, holding guns on her captor. She'd seen it even earlier, in the recordings they'd given her right after she found out who her parents were. That awful dullness, the guilt... In that instant that Julia looked at Zechs, she knew that he knew the name of every soldier that had ever died for him. She looked down at her feet. "It wasn't your fault," she murmured. That was idiotic. Why would he listen to her? Other people must have told him the same thing, and even if he believed it, that didn't mean it would make him feel any better. But she had to say something, especially since, in a twisted sort of way, it was her fault he'd lost men. "Hmph." He snorted his opinion of that. Julia was glad enough to turn her head when she heard footsteps coming back down the aisle. They sounded odd, as if Yohannes was moving very slowly, as if he was carrying something heavy. Oh. Julia suddenly felt very dumb. Of course he was carrying something heavy, he was bringing the files back. She could see him now, practically staggering under the weight of the huge box he was carrying. "Do you need any help?" she called out. "No, I can handle it," he replied, strain in his voice evident. He somehow managed to carry the box the rest of the way to the front of the room and set it on one of the table/workstations. "Here you go," he said with obvious relief, shoving the box a little farther from the edge of the table. His manner became more formal once again. "Is there anything else you require, sir?" "No, that will be all, thank you," Zechs replied. Yohanes saluted and walked back to a small desk with a computer right by the door. Julia noticed that the placement of the desk would make the person sitting there almost invisible to people standing in the hall, and at the same time would provide a clear line of fire for anyone trying to get in. She shook her head slightly, trying to clear those thoughts from her mind. Zechs noticed the movement. "Are you all right?" "I just want to do this," Julia said, unwilling to lie. She didn't know if she was all right, but she knew that she didn't want to think about it right now. She unfastened the snaps and pulled off the lid of the box. The inside was filled almost to the top with papers and other, smaller boxes. She removed the top one of these and opened it. There were several dozen data disks all stacked neatly on top of each other. "What are these?" she asked, setting the box down next to the computer console. Normally she liked doing all of her own research, but as long as Zechs was here he might as well help her. "Disks we confiscated from their lab. Most of our reports are in hardcopy, or in the mainframe," he replied. "Can you help me find your reports and sort them out from their stuff?" Julia asked. "Certainly." He walked closer and pulled a short stack of folders out of the box. Then he stared blankly at the table for a moment. There wasn't a whole lot of room there, certainly not enough room to spread out the papers. "Here." Julia stepped closer to the box and easily lifted it off the table, setting it gently on the floor. Zechs raised an eyebrow. "What?!" Julia asked sharply, beginning to get a little tired of his ever- so-elegant twitching of the eyebrows. "Did you need any help with the box?" Julia fought the flush that she felt rising to her cheeks as she realized what she'd just done. Without even thinking about it, she used her greater strength to lift something that had given a grown man a great deal of difficulty. She'd assumed that she'd be able to handle it easily, instead of asking for help the way she would have a few days ago. She shook her head silently in response. "Just. help me sort some things out. Let me know when you've got the stuff the Preventers wrote. I'm going to start looking through this," she gestured through the disks.  
  
It didn't take Julia long to figure out that Sally had been right - the vast majority of the files were complex scientific notation for gene sequences - she could tell that much at least - but they didn't mean anything to her. At least, not yet. She intended to do a prolonged study of genetics as soon as she got home. In the meantime, she scanned the pages of data as quickly as she could, scrolling through page after page of text. "What are you doing?" Zechs asked her. "Reading this," she replied, not taking her eyes off the screen. The text was moving pretty fast, and if she took her eyes off for a second, she might miss something and have to come back here to get it. "Do you understand it?" "Not yet." "Then how is reading it going to help you?" Julia stopped the text long enough to give him a withering glare. "I'm memorizing it for later," she said slowly, enunciating each word. He knew what she was, why was he asking stupid questions like that? He blinked. "You can do that?" "I told you. I don't forget things. I can't. Not since I was born. created," she corrected herself bitterly. "Whatever. I don't forget things. Period." There was a long silence. Finally, Zechs broke the silence. "I'm sorry," he said, sounding somewhat shocked. "I didn't realize it was that bad for you." "Well, it's not like I advertise it," Julia muttered, turning back to the screen. That was an odd response he'd given her. Most people would have thought it was a good thing not to forget things. Then again, her parents forgot only a little more than she did, and Zechs was also a Gundam pilot. He might know what it was a like, a little. Maybe. She started scrolling text again. "Give me another minute and I'll be done with this one." A minute later she finished and started looking through the files Zechs handed her. They were boring; for the most part they contained multiple repetitions of: We ran into the base, killed some guards, grabbed some old men, and left. No mention of her or Katie, or what the old men had been doing at the base. After a minute or two, Julia set those aside and started back on the doctor's files. She'd already made it through most of their technical notes, not a difficult proposition when all she had to do was look at the stuff, without actually trying to understand any of it. Now she was beyond the purely technical stuff and onto more comprehensible (to her) plans for the future. They'd apparently had the first several years of her life planned out in well-defined phases. Julia frowned slightly. The discs were apparently out of order - the one she was working on now had the overly-long descriptions of phases two through seven. She quickly glanced through those. Unarmed combat training, weapons, computer systems, more different types of vehicles than Julia had known existed. Yes, well, that's what you do if you're trying to create a soldier, she told herself. Make them ready to handle any kind of situation. Her frown deepened. There was something not quite right here, something that was missing, but she couldn't think of what it was. She sat back and stared at the data in front of her for another minute, trying to blank her mind enough for it to put the information together to give her an answer. Wish I had my juggling-balls with me. They always helped her think. Thinking. That was it! If she'd learned anything from her research on the Gundam pilots, it was that fighting was as much a mindset as anything else. It was ingrained, as well. Her parents were proof enough of how long those thinking patterns could remain. She clearly remembered Daddy hitting the ground once when there was a sound like a gunshot, which turned out to be just a very bad engine on a passing car. That had been when she was six or seven - they'd been out of any sort of danger for years by then, and she still saw their training in some of their behavior nowadays. Maybe it wasn't that way for normal soldiers, but the scientists who'd created her were the same ones who'd trained her parents, so it didn't make any sense that they wouldn't include that sort of training. she hesitated to use the term 'brainwashing' only because she thought her parents were too intelligent for that sort of thing. They'd willingly accepted the conditioning, possibly even knowing how long it would last. Probably the only reason the scientists had been able to do it to them was because they allowed it. Still, if they had a couple of completely helpless, unformed minds, it made sense that they'd try brainwashing. Troubled by the lack of answers, Julia switched discs, trying to find out what they'd intended for Phase one. After a couple of tries, she found it. Phase one had included a number of operations and injections designed to cement some of the changes they'd made to her body before she was born. She shivered. She didn't have any really concrete memories of that time - the earliest she'd seen was when Zechs found her - but the memories had to be there somewhere, and the shiver indicated that there was some part of her that remembered that time, and didn't like it. An image of a needle once again passed through her mind, again accompanied by a scent of some antiseptic. She shivered again. The memory was there, drifting just at the edges of her consciousness, waiting to be grasped. Julia ignored it. She had a tendency to get lost in really old memories, trapped in them, almost, and she didn't want to take the time now. On top of that, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to recover that memory. Ever. She turned her thoughts back to the disc. Phase 1 was also supposed to include 'the continuation of mental conditioning from Phase Zero'. Phase Zero? What Phase Zero? There hadn't been any mention of any Phase Zero in the other material. Well, why should there be? Common sense reasserted itself. She was having a hard time holding onto that, nowadays. Things that had seemed simple were confusing now, and she wasn't always certain if 'common sense' was actually sense at all, or if it applied to her situation. There wasn't any mention of any of the other Phases in each breakdown unless there was some kind of continuation, like there is here. Simple, except... Except that Phase One was supposed to start at her 'birth' - when she was removed from the specially constructed incubator with embryonic fluid heated to exactly 37 degrees centigrade. So how could they have done anything to her before that? Stupid, she told herself. She hadn't been inaccessible in that incubator - it was designed that way. How else were they supposed to get at her with all their needles and things? She switched to the file describing Phase Zero. She frowned again. What was in this file was different than anything she'd seen before. It looked like a bunch of essays on various aspects of psychological theory. She looked closer. It was a bunch of essays on various aspects of psychological theory. She recognized some of the names: Freud, Nietzsche, Pavlov, Antel, even some very recent studies by Weaver. She'd read some of his work and argued about it with her parents a couple of years back. He wrote mostly on early formative influences and how the society infants and very young children grew up in formed some of their most basic and primitive ideas of. not right and wrong. Nothing as simplistic as that. More like a sense of the way things should be and the way they shouldn't. It formed a slightly tinted glass through which all other learning, for the rest of a person's life, would be viewed. At the time, Julia had thought it was a fascinating theory, although it was hard to find hard evidence of something so nebulous. Her Daddy had rather violently disagreed. He thought that while early influences certainly skewed your perspective on what was 'normal', that didn't mean that a person who saw a violent act before they were old enough to even remember would forever view violence as the first way to solve a problem. Looking back on it now, she understood why her father had seemed so passionate about the argument. It was easy for her, whose 'formative influences' were two caring and attentive parents, to argue that prememories could shape the way you viewed the world. But for a man whose prememories were probably of violence and death, or, worse in its own way, abandonment? Julia dragged her attention back to the matter at hand. All of that was interesting, but didn't explain what it was doing in her file. She scrolled down, and finally got past the essays and onto actual notes about 'the project'. "Initial conditioning began at 195 days after creation," the notes said. "Which we consider to be the optimal time for establishing basic thought patterns for the future. Tactical will begin at 260 days, followed by a brief period of testing to ensure that the mental capacity is what it should be. After the subject is removed from the incubator, intensive conditioning will continue in between testing periods." The notes went on to describe the procedure in more detail, but Julia's brain had pretty much shut off by that point. All along she'd taken a good deal of comfort in the fact that they'd only held her for a month or two after she was. born, because that meant that that they hadn't had the time to really do anything to her, except create her. That had been bad enough. But if they'd started her training before she was even born. "Ze. Zechs?" she asked softly, cursing herself when she heard her voice begin to break. He instantly set down the papers he was glancing through to look at her. "Yes?" "How. how old was I when you. rescued me?" She knew the answer to that question, but she needed to hear it out loud. He frowned for a second, concentrating, then said, "Roughly three months old, I believe." Six months. They'd had six months to fuck with her mind, plant all sorts of triggers there. All the things that have been popping into my head, how I'd take out this base. Well, what else is tactical training for? And all that stuff about MS piloting, I understood it so easily, was that because they'd already taught it to me, or just prepared me for that kind of knowledge? "Julia? What's wrong?" "They. they didn't wait until I was born to start training me," she said woodenly. "They didn't?" "They. started three months before I was born." "How?" "I wasn't born normally. I was in an incubator, they had plenty of access. And with a memory like mine, the earlier the better." She saw Zechs purse his lips, preparing some sort of response, and knew without thinking about it that he was going to say some empty words about how it couldn't be that bad, that it wouldn't affect her now. She cut him off before he could say anything. "And it's there. I never knew it, but now I do. When I was researching the Gundam pilots, I read through the material that mobile suit pilots used to. All of it. In a couple of weeks. And I understood it. If you put me in the cockpit of a mobile suit, I could probably learn to pilot it in a few hours." He didn't look convinced. "I've been analyzing this base. I didn't know why, but every time I looked around, I'm thinking about how I would take people out. Either myself, or as the head of an invasion force. It's not my imagination, it's there in my head," she insisted. He stared at her for a long moment, but before he could respond, the radio at his belt beeped. Pulling it off his belt, he said, "Preventer Wind here." "We're ready. Can you bring Julia to hanger 3B?" Julia recognized Sally's voice through the static coming out of the radio. "Affirmative. On our way," he responded. "We can come back here later," he told her. Julia nodded silently, then quietly piled the files on the table into several neat stacks, to make cleaning them up easier. Then she exited the program she was in and ejected the disk from the computer, stacking it with the others. "Why is the radio sound quality so poor?" she asked calmly, trying to distract herself from what she'd just found out. Then she realized that that, too, could be taken as a 'tactical' question. "We're in a shielded bunker," he pointed out. "It's designed to be insulated from all sorts of waves, to prevent anyone from trying to communicate out what they found in here. If Sally wasn't so close, and if we weren't using the right kind of equipment, you wouldn't be able to hear anything." "Oh." He looked at her. After a few seconds, he said, "I don't mean this to sound condescending, and please don't take it the wrong way, but are you all right?" "Not really, no. But I'm not going to have a mental breakdown, if that's what you mean." "That wasn't what I meant." Julia didn't know how to respond to that. Finally she said, "Thank you for asking."  
  
  
  
  
  
All right, there goes another section. Sorry about the incredibly long delay between sections, but I had a busy summer, and things have been even busier since school started. For reasons unknown to anyone, I'm taking two languages at the same time, which means that any free time I might have had in the past is now taken up by studying. 'well, I'm kinda bored with Latin, so I'll switch over to Japanese for a change of pace!'  
  
Anyway, enough boring stuff about my life. I'm not entirely happy about this section, especially the psychological-type stuff in the middle. I'm not sure if what seemed to make sense in my head meant anything at all by the time it reached the page. I did have a good time writing Zechs. I don't usually write Zechs, because I have a hard time grasping him, but I had fun with him this time. He doesn't strike me as the type who would be particularly comfortable around kids.  
  
Also, the first section was supposed to go with the last chapter, but it was getting too long, so I cut it off. The same thing happened this time, but the chapter is becoming so much longer than I anticipated that I just broke it in two. The next part should be out in a week or two... I hope.  
  
Hope everyone's still enjoying it! Marika 


	16. Part 13b

Sally and three other people were waiting in the hanger she'd mentioned. Two of the people were dressed in gray jumpsuits, the other in a white lab coat. Julia felt an uneasy stirring along her spine when she saw the coat.  
  
"Julia, these are Majors Kendle and Orlis, they're both here to keep an eye on this equipment," Sally gestured around the room at the variety of machines lining the walls. Some of them looked vaguely familiar to Julia, but she couldn't remember from where, which made her even more uneasy. "And this is Dr. Nichols," she said, gesturing to the final man. "He's here to provide me with a second opinion."  
  
"On what?" Julia asked.  
  
"On whether or not she's pushing you too hard," Nichols replied after a glance at Sally. "Sometimes an outside observer can see things that people too close miss."  
  
Julia felt an instant's resentment flare up at being referred to like she was some sort of experiment, with a control group and an experimental group, but she pushed it aside. They did have her best interests in mind, and, after all, that was what she was, really. Someone's experiment.   
  
"He's also here to make sure I don't make an stupid mistakes," Sally added with a slight smile, obviously noticing Julia's unease and trying to alleviate it. It didn't work.  
  
"Good," Julia said shortly. She noticed Sally glance at Zechs, who frowned slightly and gave a brief shake of his head, then rolled his eyes towards Julia. Julia frowned. You'd think they'd realize talking like that was rude, especially around her. "I found out some stuff that I'm not especially happy with, but I'm beginning to get used to the sensation," she snapped, glaring at both of them. "What are we doing first?"  
  
That was probably not the most graceful of invitations Sally had ever gotten, but at least she was smart enough not to push any further. "Here," she said, gesturing to a chair with a large screen situated about 8 meters in front of it. Julia sat, hoping that she didn't look as nervous as she felt. This was ridiculous, she'd done this dozens of times before! It was just like a regular checkup...  
  
Julia caught a glimpse of the second doctor standing waiting, one of the engineers manning some computer equipment, and the second standing a few feet away, talking to Zechs. She resisted the urge to snort. Yeah, just like a regular checkup.  
  
"We're just going to check your eyes," Sally told her. "To see how far you can see, and with how much accuracy. Kendle is going to be watching the contractions of your retina through a special camera. That's it. Is that all right?"  
  
Julia nodded shortly. "One eye and then the other?"   
  
"That's right." Sally handed her a short stick with a disc at the end to cover her eye. Julia placed it over her left eye and looked at the screen in front of her. Several lines of letters in different sizes appeared. She read them. More letters, smaller this time, appeared. She read them. The process repeated... two, three... five times before she couldn't read the letters any more. By then the second engineer had stopped talking to Zechs and was standing behind the first, looking over his shoulder at the screen that was displaying an image her eye.   
  
"Is that..." one of them murmured.  
  
"I think so. We'll have to see. But I can't imagine how..."  
  
Sally glanced at them and they shut up. "The other eye, please," she requested, walking over to look at the screen.   
  
Julia repeated the procedure, this time with her left eye. Now the second doctor was also staring at the screen, occasionally raising his eyes to look at her, then looking back at the screen.   
  
When she repeated the procedure a third time with both eyes, it took nearly a dozen repetitions before the things got so small that she couldn't see them any more. Julia's temper was beginning to fray. This was taking forever, she was sick of the engineers and doctor trying to hide how surprised they were by what she could do, and she was getting a headache from trying to focus her eyes for things that small. She'd never tried to push her eyes that way before. In fact, she'd never tried to look at things so small that she couldn't see them, either.  
  
"Julia..." Sally put a hand on her shoulder. Julia turned to look at her... and jumped back as she got an up-close view of every imperfection on one of Sally's hairs. She closed her eyes and rubbed at them, trying to get them to return to normal.  
  
"Julia, are you all right?" Sally asked worriedly.  
  
"I'm fine," Julia replied, shaking her head. "Just need a couple of seconds." She thought very hard about seeing things that were close up, and felt some of the tension in her eyes lessen. When she opened her eyes, everything was completely blurry for a second, then snapped into clarity. Julia blinked her eyes several times, glancing around the room to make sure everything was back to normal.  
  
"Julia, are you sure you're all right?"  
  
"I'm fine," she said a bit more sharply than she'd intended. She jumped out of the chair and started pacing back and forth, feeling an intense desire to prove that she *could* move around, that she wasn't stuck in the chair.  
  
Looking at the slightly hurt expression on Sally's face, Julia tried to backtrack. "I... I mean... I'm sorry," she apologized. "What did you find?"  
  
Sally nodded slightly in her direction, acknowledging the apology, then said, "Individually your eyes are approximately 80/20. Together, you're nearly 400/20."  
  
Julia blinked. She'd known that her eyes would be strong, but that was ridiculous. "How... how is that possible? I mean, I'd expect it to be perfect or even a little better, but that's..." she cut herself off as she realized what she'd been about to say. That's not human.  
  
Sally glanced at the man who'd been monitoring the console.  
  
"I'm not entirely sure how, but at a guess I'd say that your eyes are acting something like telescopes. The way the muscles in your eyes work is strange as well. You seem to have a large amount of precision control over them. And, this is just a guess, but..." he came out from behind the consol and peered intently at her eyes. "I'd guess that they aren't quite shaped the way, say, mine are. There seems to be an extra layer of tissue there, to help you focus on things that are far away. And that makes your eyes a little more oblong than mine." He stared at her eyes for a second longer, then nodded as if to herself. "And I think they are."  
  
Julia nodded. It all seemed to make sense, even if it was based on conjecture. Obviously these people were a lot more than just mechanics, the way Sally had suggested.  
  
Then her aforementioned eyes narrowed. It hadn't sounded like he couldn't imagine how they'd made her, it had sounded like he couldn't understand how her eyes had gotten like this in the first place. Like he thought they were an accident of nature. "Did you tell them?" she demanded, rounding on Sally.  
  
Sally had the good sense not to pretend she didn't know what Julia was talking about. "You reacted so strongly to other people knowing, that Une thought it would be best..."  
  
"Not to tell the doctors I'm working with?" Julia asked disbelievingly. "And what were you going to tell them? It won't take them that many tests to realize that there's something seriously wrong with me."  
  
"Your file is classified. They understand the need for such things."  
  
"You mean *I'm* classified," Julia retorted.  
  
"But only Preventer agents would know that," Zechs cut in.  
  
"Julia stared at him blankly for a second before comprehension dawned. "And I, not being a Preventer, wouldn't know anything about it, would I?" she said slowly. She glanced at Sally to see if she was going to object to this obvious falsehood.  
  
Sally was smiling.  
  
Now Julia had just one problem - she had to explain the joke her life had become to a bunch of strangers. "I... am not a... normal human," she began, quickly sorting through what she would and wouldn't tell them. "I was designed. I didn't find this out until recently. I'm stronger, faster, and probably a bunch more 'ers' that I don't know about. That's what we're doing here - I wanted to know what I could do. The Preventers knew about me already, they took me from the people who... created me."  
  
She saw one of the mechanics - Kendle - open his mouth, then slowly close it. "What? What did you want to ask me?" she asked warily.  
  
"I... I just... how did you not know... your vision alone..."  
  
"It was always like that for me," Julia told him. "I thought that it was that way for everyone." There was a moment of silence, then Julia asked, "So what's next, ears or toes?"  
  
---------  
  
Over the next several hours, they got a very good idea of what she could accomplish. She could easily hear a whisper (around thirty decibels) from a hundred meters away. She could run a hundred meters in just under ten seconds. Standing, she could lift almost a ton. When she threw all of her strength behind a punch or a kick at full speed, the force she exerted was considerably more than that. No wonder she'd knocked the door off its hinges. She *was* lucky that she hadn't plowed through the wall as well.  
  
The people watching her had grown more quiet as the day wore on, aside from various comments about the machines they used to measure her abilities, or the occasional comment on how her body could have been adapted this way or that. The farther along the tests got, the more nervous the watchers got. Not that she blamed them, the results were pretty frightening to her, too. Finally, after watching the force readings when she tried punching with all of her strength, one of them muttered, "She probably shouldn't go against a mobile suit, but she might just survive."  
  
Could I? The thought sounded preposterous, but... If I had a good idea where the lines for the hydraulics were located in the legs, I might be able to punch through the plating and rip them out. That would slow them down, give me at least a fighting chance. Then I could... she stopped herself as she realized what she was doing. She grimaced and fought the urge to bang her hand against her head. Stop it! she commanded herself. I will not let this get to me. I am not going to be controlled by a bunch of assholes who I haven't been near in over a dozen years!  
  
"Hey, you all right?" Kendle asked. He had a hand half-outstretched, as if he wasn't sure whether it was safe or not. Or maybe it was that he didn't know if she'd take offense. She should give him the benefit of the doubt.   
  
"Well, according to all this I'm more than all right," Julia joked weakly.  
  
He let out the obligatory chuckle, then turned serious again. "No, seriously, are you all right? This is... interesting for us, but..."  
  
"Thank you for asking, but I'll be fine," Julia said quickly. She was trying not to think about what all this meant right now.  
  
"I think they're ready for you over there now," Kendle said, pointing at where Major Orlis, Doctor Nichols, and Zechs were talking in low voices. Julia was working very hard at *not* listening to what they were saying.   
  
"Ready?" Julia asked wearily, directing her question at that group.  
  
They broke off whatever they'd been saying and exchanged a few glances, then Orlis nodded. "If you'd just take a seat..." he requested, gesturing at the chair she'd sat in for the first eye test.   
  
As Julia seated herself she asked, "What's this one?"  
  
"Reaction speed," he replied. "This will be the last one today."  
  
"Today?" Julia asked, alarmed. She wasn't sure how much more of this she could take. For some reason, sitting here with these polite people, doing these tests, was getting to her. A lot. She was almost having a physical reaction to this, and she couldn't remember why. Julia wasn't used to not being able to remember, well, anything, and the experience was putting her even more on edge.  
  
It might not be that I can't remember, it might be that I don't want to. That was certainly a possibility - she knew enough about the way the mind worked to know that sometimes amnesia (that was the closest approximation for this situation that she could think of) was caused by a person repressing the memories. They couldn't figure out why the memories weren't there, until they did find them... and then wished they hadn't. I'll probably be joining that happy group soon enough. Julia knew herself well enough to know that she could not ignore a memory that she knew was there, and now, she knew enough to know that she probably wouldn't like what she found.  
  
There was a slight pressure against her forehead, and suddenly Julia found herself standing, with the end of an electrode in her hand, a few strands of her hair hanging from the tape that had been used to attach it to her forehead. Her hands were shaking uncontrollably, and her breath was coming in ragged gasps. "What... what the hell do you think you're doing?" she demanded hoarsely.   
  
"Julia! What's wrong!" Sally asked, rushing over to her.   
  
"What do you think you're doing to me?" Julia repeated angrily, throwing the electrode on the ground at her feet.   
  
"Julia..." Sally said slowly, while making a slight motion with her hand. Out of the corner of her eye, Julia saw a man who'd been standing next to her slowly begin to back up. As he did so, Julia saw a number of electrodes in his hand, and recoiled away from them. A flash of a memory came back to her - a net of electrodes, just like these, and a shrill scream - she shook her head and it vanished.  
  
She backed away from the man holding those... those things. It was always the same, those came first and then... she couldn't remember what came next, but she knew that she didn't want it. Another flash, looking up at a large face, a man with a hooked nose who always came with the net...  
  
There was a touch on her shoulder and she spun, startling a woman who looked alarmed. A woman? She frowned. That wasn't right, there weren't any women here. That came after... After what? She couldn't remember. But there weren't any women... So who was this?  
"Julia! Listen to the sound of my voice..."   
That's me! I'm Julia, she scrambled desperately for some kind of mental foothold. She knew that her name was Julia, knew that she'd heard it before, knew that she *was* Julia, but she couldn't remember any specific incident where it had been so. It was true, wasn't it? She couldn't remember. They called her Two, that was her name. Who was Julia?  
  
She felt hands on her shoulders and dropped down into a crouch, trying to avoid them. This was always how it started... first they moved her, then the net, then... "Please, not again," she whimpered to herself, hugging her knees and rocking back and forth. "Please..." It never helped. No matter how much she or the other screamed, it always happened. There were big bodies crouching over her, blocking out the light. They were coming for her. She looked up and saw a large bald head... huge hands... She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, not wanting to see.  
  
When she opened them, she was lying on a cold metal surface. The one with the large nose was standing over her... he'd just set her down. Now he reached for the net. She felt it settle around her head and at the same time felt the other's mental touch, trying to comfort her, but she knew what was coming. The one with the big nose came over again, removing a thin silver rod from his pocket, holding one end carefully. He made some noise, and one of the others responded. He reached towards her...  
  
"Aaaaiiigh!" she let out a shrill scream and felt her body arch as pain exploded from her hand. She jerked it away from the source of the pain and heard voices again. A hand landed on her shoulder, trying to hold her down. She swung a hand at it, trying to get it to go away. Her fist connected with something, but then pain exploded from her other arm, and she screamed again.   
  
It never helped. It always just went on and on and on...  
  
---------  
  
Duo tried to contain his impatience as their guide stopped at a checkpoint to make sure that their security clearance was still good. He obviously had no idea who they were, and Duo was about three seconds away from alleviating his ignorance, if it helped them get to wherever Julia was any faster.   
  
They'd been sitting at home, worrying, when Katie called them to send their anxiety level through the roof. Her face was an unhealthy-looking grayish color, and she said that they had to get to Julia *now*. She said that Julia was about to be in a lot of trouble, and only the two of them could help her. That was all they'd heard before both of them were running out the door. Sally had called them from Preventer Headquarters to tell them where Julia was, and that she was keeping an eye on her.  
  
By the time they got to Preventer Headquarters, Une had a guide waiting for them. And then that same guide insisted on stopping for a minute or more at every checkpoint between the gate and their destination. Heero's fists were already clenched, and Duo could tell from the expression on his husband's face that he was about five seconds away from knocking their guide unconscious and going the rest of the way by themselves, and to hell with the consequences. For that matter, he might help him.  
  
Suddenly Duo's excellent hearing picked up a faint sound, and his heart stopped beating for several seconds. A shrill scream, sounding like terror and pain and helplessness and hopelessness and everything that Duo remembered from his childhood and the war, all rolled into one sound... Julia! He was running towards the source of the sound before he consciously made a decision, and Heero was matching him step-for-step.  
  
He was dimly aware of shouting behind him, but there were no gunshots, so he disregarded the shouting as irrelevant.  
  
They ran down a hall, turned a corner, made a quick left, and down another hall. Heero skidded to a stop in front of a door - to a hanger where training mobile suits usually parked, if Duo remembered correctly. "Here," Heero grunted, slamming his hand onto the panel that opened the door, hard enough to dent the metal slightly. The door seemed to creep open, and Duo squeezed through it the moment he could.  
  
His trained eyes took in the scene in a quick glance. Zechs sprawled out on the floor, a man in a white coat crouched over him protectively. Sally stood nearby, one arm hanging limply with the other grasping it protectively. Two men stood behind her, staring in shock and horror at... Julia, who lay on the ground, curled up in the fetal position, her eyes wide open and unseeing.   
  
As he watched, she let out another scream and her entire body spasmed, her fists slamming into the concrete underneath her and cracking it.  
  
"Sally, what the hell is going on?!" Duo demanded at a shout as he sprinted across the space that separated him from his daughter. She stopped screaming, but lay on the floor, trembling and whimpering.  
  
"I don't know!" Sally shouted back. "Watch out!" she shouted as he dropped to his knees and reached out to hold Julia. The second his hand touched her, she swung one of her fists at him. It wasn't the sort of directed punch he knew she was capable of, but with all of her uncontrolled strength behind it, it was enough to knock him back a few feet and to knock the wind out of him. "I think she's having some sort of flashback!" Sally told him. "She attacks anyone who touches her. She knocked Zechs unconscious, and I can't bring her out of it!" Fear and frustration made Sally sound very angry, but the terror and guilt on her face made it clear which emotion was responsible for her behavior.   
  
"Shit... Heero..." before Duo could say any more, Heero moved forward. Moving as quickly as only he (or Julia) could, he ran up and lifted Julia into a sitting position, then trapped her arms against her by hugging her from behind. She immediately reacted to being trapped by letting out another scream, but Duo ignored it, crawling back to her side. He wrapped one arm around her chest and the other around Heero's back, being careful to avoid her kicking legs.   
  
"Julia, honey, come on..." he said quietly. Julia jerked and one of her elbows slammed into Heero's midsection, and he let out a loud grunt. Wincing internally, Duo continued talking to her. It was the only way he knew of to bring someone out of a memory, and he'd never seen anyone trapped in a memory like this. "Julia, it's me, Daddy, everything's all right, you're fine, we're both here, me and Tousan, just look at me and it will be fine. You're here, and you're safe and we won't let anyone hurt you, do you hear me? We're here and we're not going anywhere, and you're safe, ok?"  
  
Suddenly Julia jerked again and stopped struggling against Heero. She blinked several times and then focused - sort of - on Duo's face. "Don't hurt me?" she begged softly.   
  
He quickly reassured her - several times - that he wasn't going to hurt her, that no one was going to hurt her, that she was safe here. After another minute, she struggled slightly against Heero's grip, and he released her.   
  
She scooted a few feet away to sit on the floor, hugging her knees, regarding them warily. "Who are you?" she whispered, eyes flicking from one to the other. Duo felt his heart give a sudden lurch. "You're not one of them..." suddenly she broke off with a startled look, raising one hand to touch her own lips. "I'm talking... I'm talking?" She groaned and raised her hands to her face, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes. "I can't... it's all jumbled up..."  
  
She froze, and raised her eyes to them again. "Daddy? Tousan?"   
  
"Yeah, honey, it's us," Duo repeated for what seemed like the hundredth time. He'd repeat it a million times if it helped her.   
  
Without warning she lunged at him, and he braced himself for some sort of attack, but all she did was wrap both of her arms around his shoulders. He could feel her heart racing as she pressed up against him, and heard her breath coming in deep, shuddering, gasps. After a second she let go of him and grabbed for Heero, and Duo got a good look at her eyes. He didn't like what he saw - they were still wide open and unseeing, although she was blinking furiously now. "You're real," she breathed, then abruptly switched her grasp back to Duo, squeezing him hard enough to make breathing difficult. "Thank God you're real."  
  
"Of course we are, honey," Duo murmured, carefully embracing her, afraid of setting off another fit. "Can you tell us what happened?"  
  
"I couldn't... I thought... everything was gone," she whimpered.   
  
"Shh, it's ok, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want," he said soothingly. Heero slid over and placed a hand on her back. She stiffened when she felt it, then relaxed a little.   
  
"I... I couldn't remember anything," she continued, and he wondered if she'd even heard him. "I was back there, with *them*, and it was like I was there, like that was reality and everything else was... gone. Like the last sixteen years hadn't even happened. I couldn't remember before... they hurt me, and they..." her voice started rising hysterically, and he hugged her harder. Her shaking had stopped, and her heartbeat finally stopped racing. "And I couldn't get out of it, I couldn't turn it off, I couldn't even remember that it was a memory, it felt so real..." Her arms tightened around him again, and he felt the bones in his arms grating against each other, and mentally winced. He'd have bruises there in the morning.   
  
"And..." her voice became less lost, more contemplative, much more like her normal self. She actually released him enough to set back, still holding onto his shoulders, but now looking at his face. "They were doing it to train me!" her voice took on an outraged tone. "To see if they could get me to ignore pain!" She was now speaking through gritted teeth, and Duo felt his heart jump as she mentioned 'training'. He remembered his own training, in things exactly like what she described, but he'd been about to enter a situation where things like serious injuries and torture were to be expected. That they had done those things to Julia...   
  
He wondered if it was possible to get at the scientists now. He knew that they were in a maximum security prison at a secure location, but he bet Heero could find it, if he set his mind to it...   
  
Deep in the back of his mind, Duo felt the stirring of a part of him that he'd shut away after the last war, after Julia came to live with them. Shinigami had no business being around a small child, and he knew it. But for this he might be willing to resurrect him, just for a time. Maybe.  
  
"You came?" Julia asked, distracting him from his dark thoughts.  
  
"Katie called and said that you needed us," Duo told her. "I know you didn't want us around, but..." He broke off as she embraced him again.   
  
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I was angry..."  
  
"It's allowed," he told her. "I just wish..." I wish that you hadn't had to go through this at all. I wish we didn't have to lie to you. I wish that none of this had been done to you. I wish that there hadn't been any war, ever. He swallowed and forced himself to give her a smile. "I just wish. We wanted you to be happy."  
  
She swallowed and gave him a watery smile, then looked around and paled, her eyes flicking between the broken concrete at her feet and Zechs body a few feet away. "What did I do?" she asked, sounding alarmed. "Zechs?" she asked, springing to her feet.  
  
"He'll be fine," said the man who was kneeling next to Zechs. "She just caught him in exactly the wrong spot. There's already a medic team on the way."  
  
"Are you sure?" Julia asked shakily, getting to her feet and extending a hand to Duo. He took it, and was surprised when, without squeezing his hand at all, she easily lifted him to his feet. She'd never been able to do that before, exert her considerable strength in one set of muscles and not another. It bespoke a control that he hadn't seen in her before. He watched with a slight smile as she easily lifted Heero up and set him on his feet. It was a welcome change, and yet... My little girl's growing up, he thought, his lips curling upward at the thought. He was turning into a stereotypical father. Well, maybe not completely stereotypical. Had to happen sometime.   
  
"He'll be fine."  
  
"Sally?"  
  
"I'll be fine," Sally assured her, turning her body slightly so Julia wouldn't see her arm.  
  
Julia's eyes narrowed slightly. "Your arm..." She swallowed. "I broke it, didn't I?"  
  
Sally smiled wryly. "I will be fine," she insisted.   
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
"It's all right," Sally repeated, as the medical team arrived on-site, accompanied by their very-annoyed guide and a full security team. Heero glared at that, and headed over to the door to intercept the security team before they could upset Julia more.   
  
"What were you doing here, anyway?" Duo asked as the med team began the necessary process of examining Zechs and Sally. Julia did not need to be thinking too much about what she'd done while she was... out of it. Besides, he was curious. There was an odd mixture of equipment here, stuff ranging from basic stuff used to check out the eyes of pilots to stuff used to test the scopes on long-distance rifles, and even a few large panels that were used to check out the hydraulics on mobile suits. Basically the suits pressed on the panels until they started shedding important springs and coils, to test how much stress you could put on them in battle conditions. But what were they doing here, and what did they have to do with Julia?  
  
"I... ah... wanted to see what, exactly, I could do," Julia said, not taking her eyes off of the medic team. He had no doubt that she was paying quite a bit of attention to every word that they said, and probably heard everything the security people were saying, as well. So much for trying to distract her. He should have known better, by now.   
  
There was also something odd in her eyes whenever she glanced at the security team, something hard and calculating. He'd seen that expression in Heero's eyes every day during the war, and he still caught him at it from time to time nowadays, when his training overtook conscious thought. But what was that doing in Julia's eyes? There'd obviously been more changes in the last few days than just getting more control over her skills. He wanted to know all of it.  
  
"Tell me about it."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
OK, the end is in sight! One more section ought to finish this story off, but I'm already working on a short companion/follow-up from Katie's perspective, and I have some ideas for a sequel to this, if there's interest.   
  
Sorry this section took so long to get out. There were a lot of things that had to get in there, and some things that I wasn't sure how I was going to handle until I actually was writing it (Julia's episode, most notably), which slowed down the process, since I like knowing where I'm going. Real life has also been fairly busy, but I'm slowly finding a balance for everything.   
  
I had some real issues figuring out how strong, exactly, Julia is, especially since the stats that are available about Gundams and mobile suits don't translate real well in terms of potential force and mass calculations. Easy enough to say that she can pick up a car, but how much force is that exactly, and how strong in comparison to a MS? So anyway, more complications. Same for the pseudo-science I used in describing her eyes. Hope that it worked out ok.   
  
Anyway, this is pretty much the end of the story. The next section will be more of an epilogue, hopefully tie up some ends (but not too many! :)), and try to clarify some points that I wanted to make. Hope that everyone's enjoyed it so far!  
  
Marika 


	17. Part 14 epilogue

"Did she say anything else?" Julia asked, gazing out the window of the shuttle as it prepared for the final approach to the colony.   
  
"Nope, just that she wanted to talk to you," Daddy told her. He seemed a little tense, although she wasn't sure whether that was because he wasn't flying the shuttle or because they were going to visit his fellow pilots for the first time since she'd found out about them, or because Katie just made him nervous. They'd told her that Katie was the other surviving 'experiment' from what the doctors had done, which she'd already known, and that her 'enhancements' had taken the form of fairly strong psychic abilities, which she hadn't. It explained a lot about the way that Katie had seemed to be communicating with her in her earliest memories, and why Katie needed to be alone as much as she did.  
  
After Julia had managed to pull herself together a little better, she'd left a message for Richard, thanking him and telling him that she was all right and that she'd be by to pick up her stuff later. Then she'd gone down to the clinic to apologize - again - to Sally and Zechs. Wufei was there, hovering in his grumpy irritated way around Sally, although he didn't so much as glare at Julia when she arrived. In fact, he seemed more sympathetic towards her than anything else. She'd managed to give Sally a fairly bad compound fracture (from a glancing blow, apparently) when she hit her while she was trapped in that memory, and she'd given Zechs a mild concussion. He'd woken up by the time she got down there, and assured her that he was fine.   
  
Then Sally had apologized to *her* for driving her to... well, whatever had happened. Julia was working very hard at not thinking about it, and not for the usual reasons. She still wasn't sure exactly what had triggered it, and until she figured out what it was, she didn't want to risk it happening again. She'd seen Daddy wince when he hugged her or when Tousan touched his arm, and she'd seen Tousan moving stiffly, trying not to bend or twist his torso at all, and it didn't take a genius to figure out that she must have hit them pretty hard while they were trying to bring her out of it. They were also obviously trying to hide it from her, so she didn't feel bad, so she didn't mention it to them, because that would just make *them* feel worse.  
  
Is this what it comes down to? she wondered. Me and my parents hiding things from each other trying to make the other feel better? It sucked, but she couldn't think of anything else to do. She couldn't change the fact that she *had* hurt them, in more ways then one, first by running away, and then by physically hurting them. And they couldn't help that they couldn't hide the fact that they'd been hurt from her.   
  
In any case, after all of the apologizing, some Preventer had come up and handed Daddy a message. Apparently Katie had called and asked if they would come to L4, so that she could talk to Julia. And, oh yes, there was a private shuttle waiting for them at the nearest port. Being unbelievably wealthy had its advantages. That was when they'd told her that Katie had called to tell them that she needed help, just a few hours ago, and also that Katie was directly responsible for them finding her when she'd been kidnapped. So another Preventer had them driven out to the spaceport.  
  
Julia hadn't really appreciated how much power Quatre did have until then, when they were driven directly to the tarmac and the waiting shuttle despite their lack of identification or tickets, which would have made going through security interesting. It wasn't any problem for them, they drove straight past the terminal and directly to the shuttle. A woman in a neat uniform escorted them up the steps onto the shuttle, then closed the door behind them. It turned out that this was Quatre's personal shuttle, the one he used for more casual business trips. Julia didn't even want to think about what his 'formal' one was like.  
  
The ride out to the colony was surprisingly short, again, probably because of Quatre's influence. Julia spent most of it sitting sandwiched in between both of her fathers in a couch that was too small to fit the three of them comfortably. None of them even mentioned it, much less suggested someone moving. Julia had explained what she'd learned about herself, both the testing and what she'd figured out on her own. Neither of her parents had said much, just sat there and held her. She'd felt both of them tense up when she mentioned the training she'd had, even before she was born, but she'd told them that she loved them, multiple times, and eventually they'd relaxed.  
  
Daddy had... once... asked if she wanted to talk about how she'd gotten trapped in her memories. The answer to that one was a definite no, and they hadn't brought it up again.   
  
The stewardess told them that when they got to the colony, a limo would be waiting for them the second that they stepped out of the shuttle. Daddy made some smart remark about it being handy, having enough money to buy a shuttle if you needed it, until Tousan elbowed him in the side. Julia, however, was preoccupied with what was coming up.   
  
She hadn't really thought about it before, where Katie stood in all of this. All right, lets think about this logically, Julia decided. Listing things seemed to help when her life got... turned completely upside down. God, this has happened enough times that I have a methodology for it? How sad is that?   
  
OK, think. She had to have known. If she was only mildly psychic, there was no way they could have hidden it from her. Julia paused for a second to consider that. Well, maybe if her parents didn't know. But they did, so she had to have known. And she didn't tell me. Well, that was a matter that could wait for later. Daddy and Tousan said that she found me by touching a ransom note the kidnappers sent. And she knew that I was in trouble... twice... before anyone else did, all the way on the colony. Here she paused. Julia wasn't by any means an expert on psychic abilities, but she had come across information on them during her study of her own mental peculiarities. The strongest known psychic she'd ever heard of could reach people a few *miles* away, not the hundreds of thousands of miles it was between earth and L4. That would make Katie stronger than any other psychic out there, not just a lot stronger, stronger by several degrees of magnitude.   
  
Well, that makes sense. They built one for strength, one for intelligence, or something like that. Julia was mildly amused when she realized that she was irritated about being the 'brawn' one. As if she wasn't intelligent enough on her own. As if she didn't have enough problems without piling the ones that Katie had on top of it.   
Now she understood why Katie almost never left her home, why she hid from everyone when there were family gatherings. No one had told her explicitly, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that Katie obviously had just as many (if not more) problems with her... um... abilities (Julia was hesitant to label what she and Katie could do as powers, it just seemed pretentious) as Julia had with hers. But she still came down to Earth to help me.  
  
"Julia?"  
  
Julia jumped at the hand on her arm, then realized it was just Daddy. He raised an eyebrow, and she smiled sheepishly. "Sorry, I was just thinking." She glanced out the window and saw that they had landed. "This isn't the shuttle port," she observed without thinking, then winced. Some day I've got to install some sort of break in the connection between my mouth and my brain. Or at the very least, install a time delay on all stupid, inane observations. Then she realized what she'd just said meant. "Quatre has his own port?" she asked, her voice rising.  
  
"And you're surprised by this?" Daddy asked as the shuttle taxied to a stop.   
  
The lone flight attendant came up then and told them that it was safe to disembark now. Julia walked to the door, shielding her eyes and wincing as she stepped into the bright sunlight.   
  
"Eyes OK?" Daddy asked worriedly.  
  
Julia cautiously unshielded her eyes, willing them to be ok. When the bright artificial sunlight hit her eyes, though, it caused nothing more harmful than her squinting. Normal humans did that, she'd seen it. "Fine," she reported, wondering if this was going to become a regular occurrence. It could get really irritating if they asked her how she was every time *anything* happened, no matter how well intentioned the questions.   
  
It took a second for her brain to register that it wasn't more servants standing by the waiting limousine, but Quatre, Trowa, and Katie.   
  
She got another shock when Katie rushed up to her the moment that her feet touched the ground and embraced her. Julia couldn't remember that happening before, not ever. Katie didn't like touching people, not beyond casual touches, usually on the hand, but here she was, giving Julia a full-blown hug.  
  
A moment later, Julia realized she could feel fine tremors running through Katie's body, almost like she was clinging to Julia for support. "What's wrong?!" she asked, alarmed. "Are you all right? What happened?"  
  
Katie let out a sound that was halfway between a laugh and a sob, and backed up a step. "What's wrong? You got drugged and kidnapped!" she said, pointing an accusing finger at her.   
  
Julia finally got a good look at her, and was not pleased by what she saw. Katie looked terrible, so pale she almost looked translucent, and even thinner than usual, more like a skeleton than a living human. There were huge circles under her eyes, too, although someone had tried to conceal the fact with badly-applied makeup. Now, however, she didn't look so fragile, glaring at Julia through tear-misted eyes.  
  
"I... I didn't mean to," Julia said hesitantly, not sure exactly what she was apologizing for.   
  
Katie stared at her for a minute, then suddenly raised a hand to cover her mouth as she started giggling. The sound was contagious, and after a few seconds Julia joined in, as their respective fathers looked at them as if they'd both lost their minds.  
  
"That was a little ridiculous, wasn't it?" Katie said rhetorically after they'd finished.  
  
"A little," Julia said. "I am sorry, though," she apologized, knowing suddenly that she was somehow responsible for Katie's current appearance. She didn't know how she knew it, or where it had come from, but it was true, she could feel it. "What did I do?"  
  
Katie blinked, then her eyes narrowed slightly, and Julia heard an odd humming in the back of her mind, like white noise, but she wasn't actually hearing it. After a second the strange sensation was gone, and Katie blinked again.  
  
"Oh. I guess turnabout is fair play," she muttered, and this time it was Julia who blinked. That sounded like something *she'd* say - sarcasm was more her style than Katie's. Katie tended toward mysterious, irritatingly vague comments and laughing at strange intervals. "It... I know you didn't mean to, but we're tied together. When something bad happens to you, I can see it, either before it happens or when it does. And I've got a pretty good memory, so I keep seeing it, over and over again, until something happens to change it." Her eyes became rather vague, like she wasn't really looking at Julia any more. "Has to be changed," she murmured to herself, closing her eyes. "It can't end that way... no, not that way..."  
  
Julia sensed, rather than saw, Katie drifting away, and she knew it wasn't a good thing. She reached out and touched Katie's arm, not wanting to intrude on her personal space, but knowing that she had to bring her back, somehow.   
  
Katie blinked, then looked down at Julia's hand and squeezed it tightly, hard enough for Julia to feel her bones grate together. She's strong, almost as strong as me. She had to be, to do that to Julia's hand. A few seconds passed, then Katie dropped her hand like it was burning, and she refused to meet Julia's eyes. She's ashamed. "It's all right," she said, awkwardly, again not sure of why she knew these things. Ordinarily that would have alarmed her a lot, but she was willing to use the knowledge, for Katie's sake.  
  
"Thank you," Katie said quietly, still studying her hands. "I... where was I?" she glanced at Julia, who 'heard' that odd noise again for a moment. "Oh yes. I... those... those dreams, they wear on me. And then, when I had to come to Earth..." she trailed off with a shudder.  
  
"You had to come to Earth?"  
  
"Yes." Katie finally raised her eyes to meet Julia's. "It was the only way I could see, the only way that you wouldn't..." she cut herself off, staring at the ground again.  
  
Julia remembered the moment that she became absolutely certain that Stevens would never let her go, that she was going to die, and made a connection. "You... you saw me die, didn't you?" she asked. Such a thin thread of events had ended up in her living through the kidnapping. If Stevens hadn't frightened her so badly that he pushed her beyond scared, if she hadn't remembered that she could pick locks, if she hadn't slammed her fist against the door and realized she could break through it, if she hadn't managed to disable that man, if she hadn't taken his gun, if she'd hesitated...  
  
Katie's eyes widened slightly, then she nodded, her face becoming expressionless and hard. Julia swallowed. She'd seen that expression before, on the old recordings of her daddy during the war, when he pushed away whatever he was feeling in order to get a mission done. "Yes," she admitted. "I didn't want you to know, but..."  
  
"I'm sorry," Julia told her again, giving her a hug. She kept her touch light, in case Katie wanted to back away, but Katie just stood there, trembling. After a few long seconds, she relaxed slightly, the stiffness leaving her body.   
  
"I thought it would upset..."   
  
Julia thought about it for a minute. "It might have," she admitted, releasing Katie and backing up a step. "But... it doesn't, right now. I don't know why. I knew he was going to kill me, though. I don't think I would have had the courage to try anything if I hadn't known that."  
  
Katie nodded. "I don't think I would have been able to," she confessed. "I would have frozen."  
  
"You came to Earth, didn't you? Isn't that... bad... for you?" Katie's face went slack for a moment, and Julia quickly added, "You don't have to tell me, if you don't want."  
  
"No, it's all right. And it wasn't... fun. But I had to. You're my sister." Katie smiled hesitantly at her.  
  
Julia smiled back. "I never had a sister before."  
  
"Well, you did, you just didn't know it. But," she added, becoming serious once again. "I would never let anything happen to you, if I could prevent it. And I knew that I'd probably be all right. It's different. When I saw what the first man tried to do, I was so scared..." she trailed off with a shiver.  
  
"Hey, how much did you see?" Julia asked, mock-scolding.  
  
"All of it. And when the second man..." she abruptly cut herself off, glancing over Julia's shoulder at Daddy and Tousan.   
  
"What second man? What first man? What happened?" Daddy demanded, stepping forward, hands on his hips. Tousan looked concerned, as well, his lips twitching downward slightly as he crossed his arms across his chest.  
  
"Uh, can we talk about this later?" Julia asked, not looking forward to the fit they were going to throw when they found out what had happened. They would, somehow. She couldn't picture them letting her not explain this, and even if she somehow managed to put them off, she was fairly certain that Tousan would hack into the Preventers' records to find out what the interrogated prisoners had said had happened. They wouldn't find out about Stevens holding his gun to her head (the first time) that way, but they'd find out about the other guy trying to beat her, and probably be hurt that she hadn't told them.   
  
"Not much later," Daddy warned her, but he stopped glaring at her.  
  
Julia sighed. "OK, I promise we can talk about it later." She glanced over Katie's shoulders at her two 'uncles'. "Hi Quatre! Hi Trowa!"  
  
Quatre smiled at her, and Julia noticed that he was looking a little haggard, too, and wondered if it had anything to do with Katie. Probably. Trowa's lips quirked upwards as well, and he gave a slight nod in her direction.   
  
"We can go back to the house now," Quatre said meaningfully. "Unless you would prefer to stand here the rest of the afternoon?"   
  
"Well, the sun is nice," Julia said, looking at Katie.  
  
"But it will absolutely ruin my pale, ghostlike appearance," Katie protested, one hand going to her hair.   
  
"Would it?" Julia asked.  
  
Katie considered. "No, probably not. I'm pretty much albino."  
  
"Then we might as well go inside."  
  
"Yes, we might as well."  
  
"Do you really have to do that?" Quatre asked irritably.  
  
They both turned innocently vacant looks on him, and he sighed.  
  
---------  
  
"Are they always like that?" Julia asked several hours later. They'd just finished with a long, very expensive-seeming dinner, followed by dessert, which consisted of home-made ice-cream sundaes. Made by Daddy and Quatre, specifically, so they were lucky they didn't all die of sugar overdoses.   
  
After that, Julia had announced that they were going to talk upstairs, and that they didn't want any company. Daddy had started to protest, and Julia had diverted him by saying that they needed to talk about 'girl stuff'. Next Quatre had jumped in with another objection, which Katie countered by saying that it was 'genetically engineered freaks of nature stuff'. All four of their parents had objected to that statement, and it had been a few minutes before they could finally escape.   
  
"Obsessively over-protective?" Katie asked, settling herself down on a huge pillow. They were in the 'quiet' room, which Julia now knew was actually shielded against telepathic interference, a side effect of which was the sound-proofing that Julia appreciated so much.   
  
"Well, I wasn't going to say it that way, but... yes."  
  
"Yes. With good reason," Katie added after a second. "I... had a lot of problems when I was littler. But I'm not four years old anymore, and I'm not going to break if they look away for a couple of hours!"  
  
"I hope my parents don't do that. They might, though," Julia added, thinking of how they'd been acting on the plane.   
  
"It's because they love you so much, you know," Katie said.  
  
"I know."  
  
"I mean it. They gave up a lot for you. Mine too."  
  
"What sort of things?"  
  
"The things they were programmed to do. The fighting, it's hard to stop that, once you start. And helping people. That's even harder to give up. They gave up a lot for us. First, because they felt responsible, and guilty. But then they just... loved us. Even me," she said speculatively.  
  
"Even you?" Julia asked, frowning. "Why 'even you'?"  
  
"I caused them a lot of pain, Father especially."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"He's sensitive... empathic, like me, except nowhere near as strong. And because of the feedback, it hurt me to be around him. That hurt him, even though he doesn't like to admit it to me."   
  
"It wasn't your fault, not really," Julia said.  
  
"I'll believe that when you stop blaming yourself for what happened to Sally and that man," Katie replied, and Julia winced. "Sorry. That wasn't the point though, that wasn't where I was going." She winced and pressed a hand to her forehead. "Where I was going... I was talking about how much they love us... that's why they did it, you know," she said, suddenly intense, looking at Julia.   
  
"What?" This time, Julia couldn't follow Katie's logic. If logic was involved in whatever was going on in her mind, which she was beginning to doubt.  
  
"That's why they didn't tell you. About... well, everything. They were trying to protect you, let you have the childhood they didn't," Katie explained, studying her face. "But they did it because they loved you. If they hadn't... if it had been any other reason, *I* would have told you."   
  
Julia stared back at her for a minute, then finally said, "Thank you." In a way, it was a little creepy to know that Katie had been keeping an eye on her all this time, in another, it was reassuring. She told Katie that.  
  
"I... I was afraid you'd just be angry with me," Katie confessed.  
  
Julia smiled slightly. "If you know anything about me, you know that I don't stay mad at the people I love."  
  
"Well, you've been so angry for the past few days... I have trouble remembering, other things, sometimes. I get overwhelmed by strong emotions," Katie explained.  
  
"How far can you reach? I mean, you can feel me, on Earth. That's farther than anyone I've ever heard of," Julia said.  
  
"There are a few other people, in hiding, who are pretty strong," Katie said. "Not nearly as strong as me, but... a lot stronger than anyone you'd ever hear about. But... I'm not actually *that* strong. You're the only one I can reach on Earth from L4." She paused, then added, "Well, sometimes I can pick up hints of things from Heero and Duo."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Well, we're linked, for one thing. I don't know how or why, exactly, but we always have been." Katie shrugged. "Also, it doesn't hurt that you have a little bit of power yourself."  
  
"Me?"   
  
"Well, yeah, you didn't think that they'd create their weapons without trying to balance things out a little bit. I'm not as strong as you, but I'm well above the level of any normal human. About as strong as our fathers, maybe a little stronger. You aren't nearly as strong a psychic as I am... but you're probably stronger than most of the ones you'd find on Earth."   
  
"What? I am?" Katie nodded. "But... wouldn't I have noticed that? I mean, I've never sensed other people's thoughts or anything."  
  
"You're suppressing it," Katie replied immediately. "You have been for years. It was probably too much, along with your enhanced senses. You've got it blocked off so much that you're probably more psychically dead than most people."  
  
"But you..."  
  
"You've blocked off everything... except our link," Katie amended her previous statement. She was smiling slightly. "That's still as strong as ever, and combining your power with mine gives me just enough reach to be able to contact you on Earth." She paused, then hesitantly added, "If you'd like, I could teach you how to use your power... a little. At least give you some conscious control over it."  
  
Julia considered. On one hand, she was pretty sure that she didn't need any more oddness in her mind than she already had - her own main 'enhancements' gave her enough trouble as it was. On the other hand, she'd had much less trouble with her abilities after she'd found out what was really the problem. Conscious control over whatever other 'gifts' she had would be good. The problem with subconscious or unconscious control was that when it started to slip, there was nothing you could do to help it.   
  
"Am I... am I going to have problems with it soon?" Julia asked. "Like in the next couple of months?"  
  
Katie looked at her sharply, then her eyes unfocussed. Julia heard that odd noise in the back of her mind again, and then it stopped as Katie refocused her eyes. "I don't think so," Katie said. "There's no sign that it's any weaker than it's ever been."  
  
"Did you... just look in my mind?" Julia asked, pressing a hand to the back of her head, trying to pinpoint where the sound had been.  
  
Katie nodded, then gave her another sharp look. "How did you know?"  
  
"I heard something. I think."  
  
"This?"   
  
Julia heard the noise in her mind again. "Yes."   
  
She nodded, and saw a flash of alarm on Katie's face. "What does that mean?"  
  
Katie shifted slightly on her pillow. "I'm not sure." She leaned forward, reaching one hand towards Julia's forehead. "May I?"  
  
Julia swallowed and nodded, shifting forward herself so that Katie could reach her. Katie touched her forehead, and the odd noise returned. It was louder this time, and Julia imagined that she could almost feel a delicate hand poking at the back of her mind. It wasn't an altogether comfortable sensation, and if it had been anyone but Katie, she would have shoved them out and then given the a good piece of her mind, the regular way. But with Katie... she'd always been there, sort of, in the back of Julia's mind, so this probe wasn't hurtfully intrusive, just... odd.  
  
A few seconds passed, and then Katie withdrew. "The block... it *is* changing, somehow. I don't know why. You never sensed me before. Maybe it's just because you know what to look for, now." She paused speculatively. "You shouldn't have any problems for a while, though, not at the rate it's changing. I'll let you know if it's going to be a problem."  
  
"Thank you," Julia replied. "I think I need some time to come to grips with everything else, first. I want to make sure I have real control over everything, before I start on anything new. But, after that... If you have the time..."  
  
"If I have the time?" Katie actually started laughing. "*If* I have the time?"  
  
"What's so funny?" Julia demanded.   
  
"Julia, what do you think I spend all my time doing?"  
  
Julia actually hadn't thought about it very much. "Um... school?" she said, knowing even as she did so that her guess was wrong.   
  
Katie gave her a look that suggested she'd just said something profoundly stupid. "I can't be around other people, and the few tutors I can stand educated me well past high-school level years ago. Since then, I mostly sit around by myself, or help Father with business things, or study things that interest me. That's about it. Watching other people is about as close as I come to a real life."   
  
Julia stared at her. "Um... why?"  
  
"Why what?"  
  
"Are you working on, um, strengthening yourself so that you can be around people more often? You came to the port to pick us up last time we visited," she pointed out.  
  
"Yes, I've been building up my shields."  
  
"So?"  
  
"So what?"  
  
"So have you tested them? Been testing them? I mean, aside from that one trip to Earth and coming to the port to pick us up."  
  
Katie actually blushed. "I... um... haven't, yet. I'm scared," she added with a frankness that surprised Julia.   
  
"That you won't be able to deal with it," Julia guessed. I'd be scared. If she can't learn to deal with it, then she'll never get out of here. As long as she doesn't really try, she won't know if she'll fail. "But you're never going to get out of here this way, either," she said softly.  
  
"I know. I just..." Katie looked down at her hands, then waved one of them at the room. "I hate this place. I hate this room, I hate the four walls of it, I hate that I feel like I've spent half of my life here. And... if I can't hold up my shields, this is where I'll spend the rest of my life."   
  
Julia looked around. She liked this room, it was quiet (really quiet, not just quiet enough that most people couldn't hear anything), and it was the sort of place that helped you calm yourself, helped you think. But to be stuck in here... she shivered.  
"Is there... is there anything I can do to help?"  
  
Katie blinked, and Julia fought the urge to smack her. "What, you're allowed to risk your sanity for me, but I can't try to help you? You said that I have power, even if I don't know it. Can you... use that, somehow? To help support yourself, to ease yourself into things?"  
  
Katie blinked again. "I... I don't know. I never thought about it."  
  
Julia sighed. "I'm beginning to think that they built some very large blind spots into us when they finished."  
  
She felt the brush of Katie's mind against her own, and Katie nodded with a slightly twisted smile. "Yes. I think they did."  
  
"Well? Can I help you?"  
  
"I... I don't know. Father helps me, but from the outside. And... I need to do this without him. But... I need to think about this a little."  
  
"Well, when you do think about it, you just let me know. I'll do whatever I can. And you're going to train me anyway," Julia reminded her.  
  
Katie nodded, then said slowly, "Thank you."  
  
Julia nodded back and smiled a little.   
  
They both sat silently for a minute, then Katie asked, "What are you going to do?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Well, you've graduated high school... or you will in a few weeks."  
  
"Yeah. My teachers aren't going to be real happy with me, though," Julia said with a laugh. "I haven't been to school in over a week. Not since before..." Since before I was kidnapped, she thought, but didn't say. "I should probably go back before finals."   
  
Not that she needed to worry about finals. She could pass them on no sleep for a week without even looking at the material. But there was no reason to unnecessarily upset the teachers who'd been there through the last four years. It wasn't their fault that she didn't need them, and she knew her long unexplained absence after not missing a class for several years would have some people worried.   
  
But the idea of just going back to class, like nothing had happened, like she'd just had a bad flu or something... She wasn't the same person she'd been a week ago, she couldn't possibly be. And the thought of trying to *pretend* that she was... it just made her sick. So what was she going to do? She couldn't possibly tell them the truth.   
  
"I have to go back there soon," she murmured.  
  
"And after?"  
  
This time it was Julia's turn to blink. Truth be told, she hadn't thought that far ahead. So much of what she'd done over the past week had just been reacting, and then she'd been so caught up in what the immediate future held, that she hadn't thought any further ahead. "I... I'm not sure. I was planning to take some time off before college, maybe wait until I got old enough to drive a car on my own, but now..." she glanced at Katie. "I have the distinct feeling that my parents are about to come down with a bad case of overprotectingness. And... it would be good to get out of the house, for a while. Every time I see that wall I punched a hole in, I'm going to be thinking about... everything. Some new scenery would probably help."  
  
"So you're going to go to college?"  
  
"Well, I didn't apply at the regular time. I may not be able to get in."  
  
Katie snorted her opinion of that. "They'll make an exception for you."  
  
"Who will?"  
  
"Whatever college you want to go to. Let them get a good look at your records - all of them, including your IQ test and those early qualifiers they gave you when they saw your IQ score - and they'll break whatever rules they have to in order to get you there."   
  
Julia frowned. "That seems..."  
  
"Wrong? Grossly unfair? Cheating? Using your advantage? The world... the galaxy is that way," Katie replied with a shrug. "We got screwed, we got advantages, we work with what we're given." She paused, eyeing Julia thoughtfully. "Look, all I'm saying is that if you want to go to college, you're in."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"Any idea where you want to go?"  
  
"No, not really."  
  
"What about your powers?"  
  
"I don't know," Julia said, knowing immediately what Katie was asking. "I... I think I have control over everything. I'm not going to accidentally hurt someone, at least."  
  
"But can you actually use them?"  
  
Julia frowned. "Yes. I punched a hole in the wall at home," she pointed out.  
  
"But... do you know your practical limits? If you got in a situation where you actually had to use them, push yourself to your limits? I know you haven't, yet."  
  
Julia didn't like the way she said that. "Yet?"  
  
"Do you know?"  
  
Julia shook her head. "No, you have to know that. The only way I'd be able to find that out is if I actually did try to press myself that far, and there's no reason to. I don't think I can just practice benchlifting cars."  
  
"No, that's not what I was thinking of."  
  
Suddenly making a connection, Julia stared at Katie. "Why would the Preventers want to help me with something like that?"  
  
Katie shrugged. "Work on it. You're a genius, you'll come up with something."  
  
"Daddy and Tousan won't like that."  
  
"Then figure out a way they will like. Or," she added when Julia snorted, "at least one that they won't hate."  
  
"Why?"  
  
Katie became very still. "What do you mean?" she asked.  
  
"Why are you so set on getting me to do this? I mean, I think it'd be nice to have that kind of control, but it's not like I'm ever going to need it, right?" She didn't like the silence that echoed in the room after her question. "Right?" Her voice sounded very small and hollow to her own ears.   
  
"I... I think you should learn it, if you can."  
  
Julia felt a chill run through her. "Did you... see the future?" she asked hesitantly.   
  
Katie shook her head. "It doesn't work like that. My premonitions only come a couple of hours before an event, if that. Usually more a like a couple of minutes. Anything farther ahead than that, and it's just... hints. Feelings. Not even really anything of the future, just an idea that I ought to do something now. I can usually get an idea of what's coming from that. And all I know right now is that you should learn to use your powers, not just keep them from interfering."  
  
"Any ideas why?"  
  
Katie smiled slightly, even as she shook her head. "You're the daughter of two Gundam pilots, and the offspring of all five of them. Is it any surprise that your life is going to be interesting?"  
  
  
  
  
  
Yay! I've been struggling for days to figure out how to end this. It was actually supposed to go a little further, but it suddenly ended on me. I had a lot of fun with this last section, especially the conversations between Katie and Julia. I'm not entirely sure how it sounds, because although it makes sense in my head, there was a lot going on between them that couldn't be stated outright. Anyway, hope it turned out all right.  
  
As is now becoming traditional (or just 'cause I like to), here are the stats for the story:  
~ 180 pages, ~115,000 words, roughly 17 months in the works (sorry about that!)  
  
I really had a lot of fun writing this, no matter how much I might have complained about it at the time. I have a lot of plans for Julia (too many, actually, have to narrow down to a few workable ideas), hopefully some of those plans will actually make it on to paper at some point soon. I have started working on a short sidefic/companion piece from Katie's perspective, so that one should be out... sometime.   
  
As a side note, I'm currently taking a Japanese class, so I now know the pronunciation for most of the Japanese words that I used in this story. Since I'm interested in that stuff, I figure I might as well include those pronunciations now, even if it's a little late.  
Tousan (toe-san) - a shortened version of 'otousan' (oh-toe-san), a respectful version of 'father'  
Daisuki (actually pronounced die-ski) - strong form of 'like' ('I like this a lot'), which can mean 'love' or 'like' (with the connotation of being attracted to someone) in certain situations   
  
Anyway, hope that everyone enjoyed the story!  
  
Marika 11/20/02 


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